Created in 2015 by gnration, the program Laboratórios de Verão has been promoting local artistic creation, supporting hundreds of artists in disseminating their projects. This year, the 11th edition of the program – promoted by gnration, the José de Guimarães International Arts Center (CIAJG) in Guimarães, and Solar – Cinematic Art Gallery in Vila do Conde – led to the creation of four new exhibition works, presented between September 5 and 14 at the Pós-Laboratórios de Verão exhibition.

Created by artists Catarina Braga, Dora Vieira, Mariana Sardon, and Renato Cruz Santos, the winning works of the open call of Laboratórios de Verão combine different materials and formats to reveal, in different ways, the outlines that define the boundary between the human and the more-than-human. With solid and original ideas, the development of the works, presented as the result of a residency carried out during the summer months, was accompanied and curated by artist and researcher Joana Pestana.

In this new edition of Pós-Laboratórios de Verão, you can visit the following installations:

In Search of the Forgotten Image, by Catarina Braga
The plant emoji serves as the starting point for In Search of the Forgotten Image, by Catarina Braga. In this video essay, this plant-image narrates a search for its ontological truth: in order to know itself, this emoji analyzes its anatomy, materiality, and relationship with plants in a search for the flower that is at its origin.

Homúnculo, by Dora Vieira
Combining sculpture, painting, video projection, and sound, Homúnculo evokes the complexity and strangeness of the non-normative body, expressed in cyborg bodies and borderline bodies that live between the organic and the artificial. In this immersive installation, Dora Vieira creates a space inhabited by various specimens of synthetic skin, created from sampling, synthesis, and morphing.

Electromagnetic Botany, by Mariana Sardon
Five sound devices, interconnected with electronic circuits, are activated and generate a variety of noises that refer both to the sound of machines and the chirping of birds. Electromagnetic Botany, by Mariana Sardon, generates a dynamic soundscape, sometimes euphonious, sometimes unpleasant, reflecting the expression and interconnection of different forms of life and matter.

Stone of Memory, by Renato Cruz Santos
Pedra de Memória is an audiovisual installation about the imagination, landscape, and identity of the community of Caxinas, in Vila do Conde. With Forcada—a granite rock located 200 meters from land—as the horizon, Renato Cruz Santos explores the symbolic connections between humans and coastal and underwater nature.

Learn more about the works at gnration. The Pós-Summer Laboratories exhibition can be visited free of charge until September 14 at gnration.