SARA GRAÇAMorning glory

In "Morning glory", Sara Graça (Lisbon, 1993) stages a fiction, the one of the impossible encounter of the night with the day, a parable about current modes of existence, especially those where reality is conditioned by a precarious economy, almost of subsistence. It is this story of survival which can be not only about a flower but also about an artist, with whom the viewer is confronted, in a photography and sculpture exhibition. The image of a face that cries, or the presence of a monkey with an uncontrollable itching, evoke feelings, which can be either true or false, remembering works by Bas Jan Ader ( I'm too sad to tell you) and Mike Kelley ( Monkey Island: Travelogue). This show also reflects the experiences of the artist in her day-to-day living - and once again we will never know the scope of this revelation, if what we see is true or false, because the parts installed at Sismógrafo are filtered by light and shadow, by encounters, by the potency of thought. It is the flower that gives title to the exhibition, the morning glory (Ipomoea purpurea), that might give access to the content now revealed: the brevity of its life, of three days only, closed from sundown until sunrise, reminding us of the brevity of beauty and the impermanence of existence. The seeds of this kind of plant are hallucinogenic, for they contain LSA or acid amide D-lysergic, an hallucinogen and psychedelic alkaloid, considered a depressant, although it can cause physical euphoria and spontaneous tactile sensations and also in the cognitive level, the disappearance of the ego, time distortion and sensations of déjà vu. Through this show there’s a "policy of inactivity" as Giorgio Agamben conceives it: a disentangled ethic on concepts of duty and efficiency.

Sara Graça studied Visual Arts – Multimedia, at the Faculty of Fine Arts between 2011 and 2015, passing by Central Saint Martins da University of Arts in London. She presented work in the three cities and, in 2015, opened Vésta, an independent space for exhibitions in Porto.