The Home Made Labyrinth

From  mythology  to  ludic  entertainment  the  labyrinth  has  been  a  fundamental  trope of human and non-human experience (and survival) for centuries. Notions such as game, challenge, organization, disorganization, attempt, error, despair, confinement, exit,    solution,    overcoming,    form    a    semantic    universe,    whose    irremediable    paradoxicality is undoubtedly borrowed from the vast culture that the labyrinth and its representation,  from  literature  to  cinema,  helped  create.  The  same  lexicon,  in  its  enunciative,  performative  and  affective  intentions  has  been  both  recurring  and  necessary to discuss and discern the Covid-19 pandemic.
The  Home  Made  Labyrinth  is  a  transdisciplinary  project  that  addresses  this  overlapping and coincidence by bringing together artists whose trajectories, forms of expression  and  age  groups  are  different.  The  core  of  the  project  is  an  exhibition  featured  at  Balcony  Gallery  from  July  to  September  2020  and  it  culminates  in  the  publication  of  a  book  which  also  reflects  on  the  change  in  relationships  and  the  alteration of the experience of space, in its broadest sense, that took place in a time of pandemic.
The characteristics of this unusual crisis, which has produced (and continues to produce) different degrees of impact at the global scale, have led to the transformation of our relationship with the world, as well as to the emergence (and urgency) of a new visuality  and  a  new  adaptation  to  the  environment.  This  transformation,  be  it  at  the  personal level (in the relationship with the body and its proximity), or at the social level (in  the  relationship  with  the  other  and  distancing  measures),  has  moved  from  the  familiar  into  the  communal  or  collective  sphere.  The  codes  and  understandings  by  which  we  function  are  now  in  the  process  of  changing  and  our  way  of  thinking,  communicating and acting is the reflection of a mutating world.
The  works  featured  in  the  exhibition  examine  these  issues  and  illustrate  how  contemporary art deals with a set of alterations by thinking space, from psychological to urban space during times of pandemic and (de)confinement, while reflecting upon the   changes   in   such   relationship-patterns   as   social   distancing,   restrictions   to   movement, and individual and collective experiences.
While the works by Fernão Cruz and Horácio Frutuoso explore personal reflection and the relationship with the body in terms of self-portrayal evocation, those by Sara Mealha and Henrique Pavão look into collective space as an irremediably suspended locus, and into how its experiencing and the interaction with the community occur. The works by Gisela Casimiro and Nuno Nunes Ferreira, focus on the new group relations, from  the  sphere  of  labour  to  the  possibilities  of  neighbourliness,  or  the  sharing,  reinvention and application of information. Carla Cabanas, Mané Pacheco and Susana Mendes Silva explore a domestic and personal universe by problematizing issues linked to the memory, usage, labour and work overload of women.
As a whole, the exhibition presents an overlapping that mirrors the complexity of the  relationships  that  are  (re)built  after  the  pandemic  turning  point  and  their  interconnected contribution toward speculative approaches to a reality in the process of constant metamorphosis. More than ever, making the home a labyrinth is now a daily concern.

Ana Cristina Cachola and Sérgio Fazenda Rodrigues
July 2020
Translation by Rui Parada

Balcony Contemporary Art Gallery
Support by Câmara Municipal de Lisboa / Social Emergency Fund - Culture