Sofia Ponte

Stolen nature series

Untitled (2022), watercolour and pen, 21,5x14cm.
Untitled (2022), watercolour and pen, 21,5x14cm.
Untitled (2022), watercolour and pen, 21,5x14cm.
Untitled (2022), watercolour and pen, 21,5x14cm.

Oceans Trophy (2022)

I designed and produced a trophy for the winner of the Oceans category in the Wiki Loves Earth Portugal 2022 photography contest, organized by Wikimedia Portugal (WMPT), the Portuguese chapter of Wikimedia Foundation.

The trophy is made of two main elements: a medallion of recycled plastic (nylon) part of abandoned fishing nets taken from the Portuguese coast. The center of this medallion is filled with a high relief shape of a coral also made of recycled plastic. The second element of the trophy is a walnut wood stand. American walnut wood is generally used in exquisite furniture and is much appreciated for its density, strength, veins, and color. This fragment was provided and prepared by Álvaro Cardoso, an expert in wood who collects scraps with which he creates delicate furniture.

The making of this trophy was part of a partnership between WMPT, fablab_lisboa, and Zero p.

Photos: Paulo Andrade
Materials: Polymer and American walnut wood.
Total measurements: 34 cm x 12cm x 4cm.
Weight: 500gr.

Winning photos WLE Portugal 2022

The Book Dispersed (2017)

group exhibition by Unstable Media

This international group show curated by Unstable Media established a space for practitioners to come together, read, think, and discuss aspects of contemporary visual culture, i.e., the rich and diverse methods found in books produced by artists. In the 1960´s and 1970´s artists’ books came to be seen as an alternative, democratic platform largely free from commercial and/or institutional control, which could be accessed in the private sphere. With the rapid development of digital technology and the consequent rise of the internet one might have expected the book to have become less relevant as an artistic medium, yet this has not come to pass. That digital technology has made it easier and less costly for artists to produce and distribute their work worldwide is certainly a contributing factor, but given its creative potential, couldn’t the artists’ book also provide a format that not only challenges exhibition norms, but actually expands its horizons?

Unstable Media was founded in 2015 by Ana Carvalho, Margarida Carvalho, Sofia Ponte and paula roush. It is dedicated to the organization of art exhibitions related to digital media, editing, performance, and participation that comment on the complexity of the contemporary moment.

Exhibition view at the Sput&nik The Window.
View of Eva-Maria Offermann's work in a street in Porto.
View of José Oliveira's work at Casa das Artes.
Exhibition view at Casa das Artes.
View of Sharon Kivland's work at Casa das Artes.

Participants: Beatriz Albuquerque, Patrícia Almeida & David-Alexandre Guéniot, Ana Alvim, Isabel Baraona, Ricardo Basbaum, Stanislav Brisa, Jessica Brouder, Catarina F. Cardoso, Isabel Carvalho, Paulo Catrica, Julie Cook, Ana Efe, Os Espacialistas, Inês M. Ferreira, Ana Fonseca, Lara Gonzalez, Dejan Habicht, Michael Hampton, Teresa Huertas, Andrea Inocêncio, Calum F. Kerr, Sharon Kivland, Tanja Lažetić, Catarina Leitão, Ana Madureira, Fernando Marante, Daniela de Moraes, Eugénia Mussa, Eva-Maria Offermann, Andreia Alves de Oliveira, José Oliveira, Susana Paiva, Tadej Pogacar, Pedro Proença, Carla Rebelo, Eduardo Sousa Ribeiro, Mireille Ribière, Sara Rocio, Ana João Romana & Susana Anágua, Paula Roush, Ana Santos, Manuela São Simão, Kim Svensson, Filipa Valladares & Maria do Mar Fazenda, Francisco Varela, Rodrigo Vilhena, Emmanuelle Waeckerle and Gillian Wylde.

It took place between September 23^rd and October 28^th 2017 at Casa das Artes and Sput&nik The Window, Porto, Portugal.

media-instaveis.tumblr.com

#Artists books#Artists Working Together#Exhibition#Unstable Media

Femanoids (2022)

This is a series of mix-media drawings that speculates about identity stereotypes and cultural pressures women face daily. Femanoid aims to contribute to the debate of how the concept of gender has been changing and, more recently, has been subject to such intense controversy. It is also a nonsense name that makes me think about the sometimes redundant meaning-making processes that categorise women’s look, ideas, behaviours and interests.

In 2022, I was invited by Francisco Laranjo to do a cover for the century-old magazine O Tripeiro, published by the Comercial Association of Porto, in Portugal. I decided to do a screenshot of my website. Bellow an excerpt of the text that helps contextualise the cover image included in the printed version of September’s issue:

“A screenshot is an image of data displayed on a computer screen, mobile device or game console. The way content appears on a screen depends mainly on the electronic device, the operating system and the version of one’s browser. A screenshot can therefore be useful when one needs to show something that would otherwise be difficult to explain in words, for example reporting an error. By using a screenshot there is less chance of being misunderstood. A screenshot is generally used to record exactly what one is seeing on a screen in order to share with others, have as a reference, archive a web page before an update, or document a moment of a video game competition. The data gathered in this screenshot refers to artists and designers responsible for projects of various kinds. All have in common links, past or present, to the School of Fine Arts of the University of Porto and the city of Porto, and their online presence mirrors their physical presence in the world.”

Posters

Femanoid (2022). Printed by moi meme. 20x24cm linoleum, serie of 5.
Untitled (2016) As you all know, there are various forms of state, welfare states, corporate states and the state we have reached. Tonight we are going to end the state we have reached. Captain Salgueiro Maia addressing his command at dawn on April 25, 1974. 50x70cm silkscreen. Printed by Ofiatalaia, serie of 29.

Do it Yourself (2016)

group exhibition by Unstable Media

This exhibition joins Portuguese speaking artists to focus on the notions of work of art, museum object and participation. We understand that curation has the potential to engage visitors in an experience that challenges their expectations about the representation of art. Thus, we propose that in addition to the instructions that are gathered here, visitors experience different concepts of works of art, showing how the norms and conventions of exhibitions vary in relation to the concept of art in which one is present.

Do it Yourself – Art by Instruction is curated by the art group Unstable Media, founded in 2015 by Ana Carvalho, Margarida Carvalho, Sofia Ponte and paula roush. It is dedicated to the organization of art exhibitions related to digital media, editing, performance, and participation that comment on the complexity of the contemporary moment.

paula roush instruction.
Luísa Salvador's instruction.
Inês Ponte's book instruction for learning olunhaneka.
On the left Livia Flores instruction, on the right Marta Wengorovius instruction.
Wengorovius instruction performance at the opening of the exhibtion.
Mónica Miranda's instruction.

Participants: Lívia Flores, Mónica de Miranda, Daniel Moreira, Susana Pedrosa, Inês Ponte, Patrícia Portela, João Ricardo, paula roush, Luísa Salvador, Susana Mendes Silva, Adriana Tabalipa, Rui Torres e Nuno Ferreira, Marta Wengorovius.

It took place between April 17 to May 21, 2016 at Sput&nik The Window, Porto.

You can read more about the exhibition at Academia. (Portuguese, English and French)

media-instaveis.tumblr.com

#Artists Working Together#Exhibition#Portuguese Speaking Artists#Sputnik The Window#Unstable Media

Witches series (since 2015)

w/ Maria Ponte Pereira

Ongoing series of illustrations created with my daughter Maria.

It all started with a Portuguese witch… There wasn’t a Portuguese witch in the dictionary of witches and witchcrafts that Maria inherited from a friend and so this collection began! Here you will find some witches and wizards that we know well and that we miss being in a kind of book that has little of a dictionary and more of imagination.

Maria Ponte and Sofia Ponte are drawing witches since 2015.

These drawings were made with color markers.

On warm days the Portuguese witch enjoys the sun without getting burnt.
The Catalan witch loves apple
The Namibian witch flies over the dunes in her balloons
The Chilean wizard walks his spider while listening to radio
The Computer wizard flies on his broomstick while printing a photo of his cat

Debutants ball series (2014)

The debutante ball is a traditional rite of passage, in certain social classes, to which teens girls are subject. It means that they participate in a party that marks the start of their adult life. It seems an innocent celebration but many times it also means that they are literally thrown to a succession of events that will change their lives in unexpected ways.

Aurora Sofia dancing with her mother Elisabeth Joana.
Sara Catarina dancing with her father José Pedro.
Maria Beatriz dancing with her friend Marco Jorge.
Clara Eva dancing with her cousin Frederico Alexandre.
Ana Catarina dancing with her stepbrother Carlos Manuel.
Leonor Verónica dancing with her brothers João Miguel and Rafael Hugo.
Luísa Inês dancing with her uncle Guilherme José and cousin André Gustavo.

Collage and vinyl on paper, 50 x 70 cm each.

Device Medi(t)ation (2012)

A journey of passion, meditation and creativity w/ Joana Mourão

A temporary urban intervention designed to develop a critical experience of the everyday life of the city of Guimarães, Portugal. The project aims to provide a creative experience of the public realm by questioning models of representation and perception of collective heritage.

Three rotating metal structures – The new stations of the cross – depict a performative relationship with the body in public. All three structures differ in the architecture and context of use, covering a broad spectrum of performers and spectators. Those who pass by or attend each site are challenged to participate and act on the flow that their urban performance generates.

Sketch by Joana Mourão.
On the left sketch by Joana Mourão, on the right sketch by Sofia Ponte.

More info at Future Architecture.

#Art and Design#Artists Working Together#Daydreaming Together#Public Art#Socially Engaged Art

Brain series (no date)

Watercolour on paper, 18 x 10 cm each drawing.

Daydreaming in Public (2009)

w/ Tiago Pereira

Daydreaming in Public is a short-film that brings an insight to art boundaries and artists’ participation in contemporary society. It combines the work of artist Sofia Ponte with Tiago Pereira visualist practice. The authors reflect on the role of art in understanding the specific conditions of the emerging 21^st century city.

vídeo, color, sound, 9’10’’
Portuguese and English
Subtitles in English
©2009

Nominated for the award Films About Art – Festival Temps D’Images in 2009.

Short-film

Screened at:
Daydreaming Devices in Exhibition, December 2016, School of Fine Arts of the University of Porto
5 1/2 Proposals to Work and Live in the Current Millennium, March 2014, Dutch Art Institute, Arnhem, The Netherlands
Between Document & Fiction 2, March 2013, Marquee Theater, Madison, USA
Between Document & Fiction, 2011, Cinema Passos Manuel, Porto
Filmfest Dresden – International Short Film, 2010, Dresden, Germany
Festival Temps D’Images, October 2009, Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon
Arminda Exhibition, 2009, Goethe Institute-Portugal, Lisbon

#Artists Working Together#Daydreaming Together#Public Art#Socially Engaged Art#Video Art

Working Unit (2008, 2014)

This daydreaming device can be used in an individual way but also in a collective playful way. As much as it is perceived for facilitating immediate physical relief, it also supports awaken activities such as reading, writing, and daydreaming. The performative feature of Working Unit, a desk that conceals a red mechanical pillow board inside its tabletop, is released when its user starts turning a hidden knob elevating, at adjustable heights, a comfy pillow that allows rest or sleep.

Daydreaming Devices have various key features: they are both utilitarian and emotional objects; their acceptance depends on the user’s adoption of the visual metaphor they express; they reach their maximum potential when activated in a group of people; they attempt to affect an understanding of the awaked life.

Drawings of daydreamers.
Diagrams of the second Working Unit prototype (2014).
Images of the second Working Unit prototype (2014).
Diagrams of the first Working Unit prototype (2008).
Images of the first Working Unit prototype (2008).

Table with lifting pillow board.
First prototype: Finnish wood table, mechanical gearing, foam and fabric.
Minimum size: 91 x 61 x 73,6 cm
Maximum size: 91 x 61 x 86,3 cm
Second prototype: Beechwood, mechanical gearing, foam and fabric.
Minimum size: 120 x 79,5 x 79,5 cm
Maximum size: 120 x 79,5 x 97 cm

#Art and Design#Daydreaming Together#Public Art#Socially Engaged Art

Dreaming Lounge (2007-2008)

This daydreaming device can be used in an individual way but also in a collective playful way. As much as it is perceived for facilitating immediate physical relief, it also supports awaken activities such as reading, writing, and daydreaming. The performative feature of Dreaming Lounge, designed for the reading room of Barker Engineering Library, at MIT, is activated when pulling a handle on the right side of the chair bed, that converts the chair in a bed, while releasing a blue canapé protecting the user’s upper body from exterior elements such as light and sound.

Diagrams of the Dreaming Lounge prototype (2007).
The Dreaming Lounge was in use at Barker Engineering Library reading room at MIT, from December 2007 to April 2008.

Convertible chaise-lounge with canapé. Wood, 1 passengers seat from a GMC car, various mechanical gearing, foam and fabric.

Minimum size: 89 x 101 x 180 cm
Maximum size: 89 x 125 x 180 cm

#Art and Design#Daydreaming Together#Public Art#Socially Engaged Art

Daydreaming Devices (since 2007)

Ongoing art project I initiated during my studies at the Visual Arts Program (VAP), current Art, Culture and Technology Program (ACT), at the School of Architecture and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2006-2008), USA. Under the umbrella of the concept of Daydreaming in Public I have created participatory art and design objects that mostly stage sleep and rest in public. They are praising public space as one of the prime sites for Daydreaming Together, construct and communicate world views, in ways that aim to amplify our understanding of the waken life.

Drawing of a daydreamer.
Daydreaming Devices in exhibition at the School of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, December 2016.

#Art and Design#Daydreaming Together#Public Art#Socially Engaged Art

Photomaton (2010)

Portraits of João dos Santos w/ Tiago Pereira

This video-documentary gathers documentation and testimonies related to the thought and activity of Portuguese psychiatrist João dos Santos (1913-1987). It explores sound and visual language to create an audiovisual document that is also an artwork. Inspired by the radio programmes authored by psychiatrist João Sousa Monteiro and João dos Santos, and broadcasted by Rádio Comercial in the 1980s, the film breaks down key concepts on child development and society, constant interests of João dos Santos. The video has a documental character, because it is about a man, and an artistic character because it is a product of culture, that reflects on various aspects of the human condition.

Video, color, sound, 58’
Portuguese
Rádio Televisão de Portugal and Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian
©2010

Video-documentary

Screened at:
(A)Mostra Filmes e Ciência, May 2013, Pavilhão do Conhecimento, Lisbon
DOCLisboa – VIII International Film Festival, October 2010, Cinema Londres, Lisbon
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, May 2010, Lisbon (premiere)

#Artists Working Together#Children#João dos Santos#Mental Health#Video Documentary

Fundamental Interactions (2006)

This art installation refers to the interactions that I had, from October to December 2006, with people that have no other fundamental explanation besides the interaction itself. I had a few happenstances with persons that I came across for no reason, just because I needed a mattress, a room, a piece of information, etc. They represent certain moments of action that document individual experience of time. I have drawn, arranged, and displayed objects related to the construction, representation, and transmission of our speech to reflect about ways of documenting ephemeral forces and interactions.

Installation
Text on vinyl, cardboard, drawings, tracing paper, tape, videos, monitor, table.
Variable dimensions.

#Art and Design#Daydreaming Together#Socially Engaged Art#Video Art

While Robert Morris is Asleep (2005)

A serie of photographs taken at a vacant lot in the periphery of Lisbon, that represent some of the overlapping values produced by the fast changes that was being felt at the time in Portugal, on the verge of the opening of the first IKEA store in the country.
The landscape is populated by a female dreamy like character who embodies the male character of Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499) a restless young adult looking for love while overcoming all sorts of architectural forms and beasts. This work also pays homage to conceptual artist Robert Morris, who delve so well the idea of theatricality.

Performer Inês Tanqueiro.

Dream #1.
Dream #2.
Dream#3.
Dream#4.

Dream #1:
B/W prints on paper, 21 x 15 cm each.
Dream #2:
B/W digital prints on transparent PEGT, 100 x 70 cm each.
Dream #3:
B/W prints on paper, 21 x 15 cm each.
Dream #4:
Color digital print on paper, 100 x 70 cm.

Exhibited at:
Academy of Arts of Ponta Delgada, Azores
Cirurgias Urbanas, Porto

#Photography

Shipwreck (2005)

w/ José Carlos Teixeira

This site-specific video-installation reflects on the emotional states of fragility, isolation, and solitude. Two video-projections, one of a woman and another of a man in wet clothes diametrically opposed to one and other, representing the space of exhibition, the Sala do Veado (deer room) at the Museum of Natural History of the University of Lisbon, Portugal. The images are mirroring each other and bringing to the center of the room the visitor and the psychological density of the video characters entangled on the borders between reality and fiction.

Installation views at Sala do Veado (Dear Room), National Museum of Natural History of the University of Lisbon, from June 3 to 18 2005.

Vídeo-installation
13’47’’ loop, color, sound.

Also exhibited at:
8 ème Rencontres Internationales Paris-Berlin, Grand Hall de La Vilette, Paris
Arts Academy of Ponta Delgada, Azores

#Artists Working Together#Exhibition#Sala do Veado#Video Art

Paradise in Pieces (2004)

w/ Inês Ponte and Joana Mourão

Performative manifesto about the state of Public Art in Portugal.

Excerpt of our manifesto: “We walked around Costa da Caparica, inspecting potential spaces and potential forms that would materialise our vision of the complex relationships between the city and the beach. We stabilised in front of the towers. The famous towers of Costa da Caparica: four 12-storey buildings, about 30 metres high, separated from the beach by the natural dune that runs along much of the coast. The platforms between the towers, where pools that remain empty were installed, destroyed any possible relationship between the territory to the west – the beach – and to the east – the town – thus defining an impassable wall. The town was turned with its back to the sea and to the beach. The fishermen’s quarter was sealed off from contact with the sea by the priority given to seasonal accommodation for tourists, which today is clearly underused.”

Text, photographs and video.

#Artists Working Together#Public Art#Socially Engaged Art

I was one hour quiet and one hour silent (2001)

Site-specific audio-visual installation at Gás Rápido warehouse, Porto.

I experiment with the concept of sculptural production beyond its most obvious materiality. At the time, this warehouse had several orange gas canisters stored in metal structures placed in an open space surrounded by trees, wind, birds and a creek. I created a soundtrack combining sounds of gas leaking and burning gas in a repetitive minimalist way. This sound could be accessed through three audio stations placed along the main metal structure. In this circumstances visitors were invited to experiment samples of the concept of “natural” and of the concept of “artificial”.
The artwork explores the tension between a seemingly harmless landscape, such as the one physically surrounding this warehouse, and the invisible contained gas ready and waiting for an opportunity to burn.

Sound-installation
7’11’’ sound loop.

Documentation of this artwork was included at:
Belas Artes em Erasmus, group exhibition curated by José Carlos Teixeira and Cristina Regadas at Galeria Municipal, Biblioteca Almeida Garrett, Porto, 2002.

#Sound art #Site-specific #Sculpture

Self-Portrait (2001)

This self-portrait offers an insight into the understanding of my early 20’s, a suspended building with several seemingly antagonistic chambers. This object has a three-dimensional quintessence difficult to define in a permanent way. It is a drawing project that also contributes to the endless problematic of identity issues through self-representation.

From image 1 to 4: digital prints, 50 x 50 cm each.
Image 5: digital print, 15 x 10 cm.
Image 6 to 8: Artist book made with cardboard and digital print on tracing paper, 41 x 52 x 1,5 cm.

Drawings and Illustrations

Drawing is one of the things that really inspires me. I experiment, depict details, turn around ideas and ruminate in thoughts. I see things through different lenses. It makes me look at the familiar in refreshing ways. I enjoy so much the time I spend drawing. It is never time wasted.

Graduate Courses

Research Methodology

Art, Communication and Visual Culture

Painting Seminars

History and Theory of Painting

Current Art Ideas and Practices

History and Theory of Image

Undergraduate Courses

Sociology of Art

Art and Contemporary Culture

Art, Culture and Communication

Drawing and Visual Communication

Drawing and Visual Communication – Analytical Drawing

Theory of Perception

History of Contemporary Art

Digital Aesthetics

Research Methodology for Fine Arts - Sculpture

Contemporary Art

Modern and Contemporary Art Studies I

Modern and Contemporary Art Studies II

Theory of Image

Supervisions – PhD degrees

Scenography in recombination: a study on the thresholds between materiality and fiction by Aurora dos Campos

Appropriation in the processes of contemporary sculpture. Towards an analysis between dialogue and participation by Ana Almeida Pinto

Supervisions – Master degrees

Power in Transit: About Women in Public Space by Izabel Rosa

Disseminating Human Echolocation through Public Art by Gustavo Romeiro

Fantasy and Internalization of Daily Life Experiences: a conceptual approach to sculpture by Yuga Hatta

Afrofuturism & the Present: an (auto)ethnographic journey to walking interviews with black women arts practitioners in Porto by Claire Sivier

Book Object and Life Stories: Essay on South American immigrant women in the city of Porto by Tamires Mazzo

Headless Women and Other Events. Routes for public art in Porto by Mariana Morais

Dramaturgies of the Everyday. Speculations on the fictional dimension of the real by Aurora dos Campos

Sensing the Senses. Strategies to intensify the sensorial experience through design and art in urban space by Eduardo Pedreiro

Rubber Women: Stamp workshop and collaborative zine as a dialogue space between drawing and female representations by Gabriela César

Adding and Subtracting in Painting: A dialectic of chromatic construction by Daniela Pinheiro

Texts for Exhibitions