We wander in circles through the night and are consumed by fire
2019 - ongoing
Inkjet prints on Hahnemühle Fine Art Baryta paper
140 x 93 cm | 100 x 67 cm | 80 x 53 cm | 40 x 60 cm
The production of these images coincides with the time in which we are devoured by multiple ecological catastrophes on a planetary scale. Therefore, it is no mere coincidence that this project by Carina Martins obtains its title from the Latin palindrome, In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni.
These photographs are not born from the light of modern instrumental reason to address the human gaze in a cartesian and solar space. Their origin must, indeed, be sought in the penumbra and in the gradients of darkness. They refer to an art of writing in the dark, a nyctography or a plea for the minimum of luminescence. Here, all matter emits light (biophosphorescence). Night vision captures the light source subtly disseminated by the cells, making it possible to glimpse the radiation emitted by all living matter.
Directing a critical rejection to secular anthropocentrism, the photographer is closer to a lineage of eco-philosophical authors, whose thinking and aesthetics mark a convergence point between the arts, literature and nature. As in the writing of Maria Gabriela Llansol, these images seek the glow, the energy of vibrant matter and all of nature's spontaneous and unpredictable vitality. In this modulation of voice and poiesis, the ontological valorisation of the non-human reverberates. As Llansol also says, "I see myself breathing, giving my hands and strength to the plants and the soil, and in the end, I can't distinguish myself from the day that goes by". This is also the subtle energy that emerges from these images, like someone who takes the opposite path of light to contemplate a sovereign existence in the trees.
Text: Rui Ibañez Matoso
We wander in circles through the night and are consumed by fire (pdf)