The artists subvert and disrupt the possibilities of a single narrative meaning in their work. They inject fantasies and subtleties that combine and complement each other. Instead of offering us a story or a character, they become the text and the protagonists of their work. Fiction and reality, looking and being looked at, the confessional and the public, desires and frustrations are some of the places they visit, in the pursuit of a rhizomatic waiting, vaporous immanence in constant formation and chaos… In the words of Deleuze and Guattari: “a stream with no beginning or an end, which erodes its two banks and gains speed in the middle.”

(Ana Cecília Soares, introduction of the booklet TEMPO REAL, my translation)

Based on a poetic and visual dialogue between the artists Ana Cristina Mendes and Nathalie S. Fari, the serial project EM ESPERA reflected upon the theme of waiting: the undefined love situations, unrequited or unexpected passions, emotional restlessness or the Brazilian popular saying: „ficar para semente ou ficar à deriva” (EN: staying for seed or being lost). For the first edition of the project, the artists explored the public spaces of the cities of Nürnberg in Germany and Fortaleza in Brazil, to create a photographic series which aimed to suggest sort of “waiting places”. In the second edition, such an idea was expanded to the Internet where the artists initiated a dialogue through what’s app communication by using images of different trees as an interface to question:

What does it mean to wait for someone to answer? What is mine and what is yours on the internet? And what does “real” mean in such a context? 

Booklet TEMPO REAL / second edition 

Event Dates: Sept 2012, Exhibition “Liebe und Leidenschaft” within the cultural exchange program of Ponte Cultura e.V. AEG Factory, Nürnberg, GE; Sept 2013, Pinacoteca de São Bernardo do Campo + São Bento do Sapucaí, São Paulo, BR

Credits: Concept, Performance and Photography: Ana Cristina Mendes & Nathalie S. Fari