LAUNCH / TALK "THE OVARIES OF THE POPPIES"

Isabel Carvalho, Maria João Macedo, Vanessa Badagliacca

Conversations regarding the launch of “The Ovaries of the Poppies”, a publication that extends the exhibition of the same title by Isabel Carvalho and Clara Batalha presented at Sismografo in 2018, with the participation of the artist Isabel Carvalho, Vanessa Badagliacca, author of the essay “From the Field to the Tongue” which is now being published, and Maria João Macedo, member of Sismógrafo and studio Macedo Cannatà, designer of this book. This launch also coincides with “Editoria Errância”, the retrospective exhibition that Culturgest is dedicating to the editorial work of Isabel Carvalho, on display from October 12th until February 2nd, 2025, in Lisbon.

Isabel Carvalho (Porto, 1977). Her artistic career is characterised by a strong experimental component, rooted in research primarily within the realms of philosophy and literature, at the crossroads between the arts, sciences and speculative knowledge. In her projects, she consistently explores inquiries concerning the materiality of language, extending this exploration to non-verbal forms of expression. Her work has been developed through the intimate articulation between the visual arts, writing, editing and book publishing, using different media or expressions, which, over recent years, has expanded into sculpture and occupation of three-dimensional space. She has taken part in solo and group exhibitions and residencies internationally. She was responsible for the Navio Vazio project, a temporary 3D space for editorial experimentation. In 2017, she started the magazine Leonorana. She is a founding member of EARTHSEA – a cultural association dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of interdisciplinary artistic research, centred on the intersection between ecology and technology.

Under the name Clara Batalha, a pseudonym she chose in around 2010 – which can be read simply as a name, or by its meaning, “bright battle”, she has staged a long-term collaboration that permits her to develop work often related to drawing and illustration. Through this practise, she aims to explore issues of identity, gender and stigma related to old age.

Clara Batalha (Porto, 1929). Graduated in Art and Geometry from the University of Paris-Sorbonne and attended the free course in Decorative Arts. Between 1953 and 1965, she worked as a private educator in Paris. From 1969 to 1983, she settled in the Douro region (Baião), where she was a librarian for the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. It was only in 1977 that Batalha began writing, drawing and publishing regularly in the Gulbenkian Foundation's newsletter. Since 2010, in co-authorship with Isabel Carvalho, she has developed several artistic projects, in particular for the editorial experimentation space, Navio Vazio (Porto). Recently, she has dedicated herself to environmental activism, as a member of various informal groups, and has been a major promoter of the study of phenology among young people.

Vanessa Badagliacca (Palermo, 1981) is an art historian and educator.  She received her Ph. D. in Art History at FCSH-Universidade Nova de Lisboa with the thesis “Organic Materiality in 20th Century Art. Plants and (Human and Non-Human) Animals from Representation to Materialization.” Her academic research – interacting with her curatorial practice – explores the entanglements between plant life, environmental issues, and artistic practices, with an approach informed by the sciences, ecocriticism, and new materialisms, focusing mainly on the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America in a transnational perspective. She has published her work in international academic journals and also dedicates herself to editing and writing for exhibitions and magazines.