Diana Vidrascu relies on the tectonic imaginary that informs the archipelago of the Azores and establishes the narrative of an experimental documentary, where she explores a scientific but also fictional timeframe. The volcanoes erupt from the earth, mark the video installation and frame a set of sonorized photographs, which the artist also presents.

VULCÃO: In the Azores Archipelago, on the triple junction of three tectonic plates, exists a bearing constant motion and ceaseless seismic activity - time collides, mountains move, and images emerge as new islands from the ocean. This creates the premise of a geological mythical land, where narratives are produced in a pounding rhythm of 24 tremors per second, making way for a cinematic language eruption. Using analogue film techniques and special effects from the optical printer, Vulcão crosses times, forms and different references.

By intersecting abstract experimentation and narrative documentary, forms and concepts are twisted, working the idea of an alternative chronology. The ocean is transformed into boiling lava and old images are transfigured into new forms, while memory morphs between liquid and solid states to something that is diluted.


TIMESHORES: By detecting invisible presences, infrared photography allows analyzing the territory in a distinct way. The photographs in the Timeshores series display landscapes frozen in time, like fleeting moments from the geological age. An age of volcanoes and unformed continents, long before any history was written. Together with its sound installation, each image seems to emerge in the viewer’s eyes like the memory of a forgotten dream. As on rising to the surface, these images reiterate movements from the installation Vulcão being, simultaneously, chapter points in the narrative and the canvas onto which animation scenes are pictured. As the robotic movement of an artificial observer, or rather as a volcanic deity looking down upon the Earth, the film camera looks for things hiding in plain sight. Facing the photographic paper, the viewer is invited to search for its own details, at his own pace and pleasure. Observing and listening within the loop of the frame.