The two installations by Susana Mendes Silva presented in the house suggest traps and appear to make references to each other. Together they form an intervention that derives from the search to establish an interplay between a latent threat and the deconstruction of the artifice. In one of the installations, Untitled (2005), we find a carpet made of glass marbles that fits the space where it is exhibited, next to the bathtub in the bathroom. This work has the particularity of suggesting to us a situation of impasse between attraction and distrust. The objects are mirrorlike and visually seductive, they attract the viewer, but their arrangement and layout in the space imply attention and care. Their circular shape and loose combination might make anybody who steps on them to fall over.

The work by Susana Mendes Silva installed in the room in front, Obstacle (2005), also consists of a fragile structure that does not allow an immediate identification of the mistake that it promotes. By creating a barrier with nylon line in the room's doorway, this installation can undoubtedly prevent the entry of the viewer, but as it is not very resistant, its real effect may not be at all verifiable. However as it is almost invisible to the eye of the viewer, it may also reflect the implicit obstacles, the boundaries that sometimes prevent perception in the form of an apparent and subtle transparency.


Sandra Vieira Jürgens
In catalogue of Penthouse - a temporary occupation, Virose/Mimesis, Porto, 2005.