ANDREA EBERT
Opacity
2019 - 2022
Photo book 28x24.5 cm with 24 pages
Being invisible and present at the same time in front of opaque surfaces, this was the exercise in photographing closed windows of closed commercial establishments. The opacity of the window reflects fragments of a city and at the same time shows its state of precariousness. Details of various types of materials that could somehow cover what no longer existed inside, an empty space. The book presents the architecture that frames a closed space and reveals an exterior that it still inhabits. This work began in 2019 and is an ongoing process because the landscapes and surfaces are constant. Part of this work was edited for the book Opa-cidade and the photographs are being stored at this linkhttps://www.instagram.com/andrea_ebert_opa/
Sun shade
2022-2022
Color video without audio, 5’55’’ duration, projected by a box with a lens
The object becomes a living thing that has a desire to expand and belong to another space. After an intense photographic record of how a sun visor can behave on vehicles parked on the streets of a city, this object becomes something that photography can no longer document. The sunshade is already a being that can somehow be freed from a closed object and experience things that it has always liked to look at but can never feel. At the Viragem exhibition, this video was projected by a homemade device in which the corners of the image were blurred due to the quality of the lens.
Ticket Transport
2018 - 2022
258 slide images from a device in a 20x12x5 cm box, with a lens
Photographic records of railway stations in the city of Seoul using a cell phone. Without a destination or set time, I embarked and disembarked on platforms to capture the architecture and objects that appeared. The untreated photographs were later placed in chronological order on Instagramwww.instagram.com/ticket_transport/ such as triptychs and titles that dialogued with the image. For the Viragem exhibition, it was possible to view the images in a box with a lens in which the photographs could be viewed from a cell phone screen in slides.
While there was a certain distance between the artist and what was photographed, in the exhibition the viewer was extremely close to what was captured.
Transforming the unfamiliar into the familiar, the contrast of distance and extreme approximation in conception and exhibition, the time between the photographed subject and how it can get closer to the artist through archiving on a public platform, were constant concerns in this work.
How to be available in a library
2018-2022
Hand-embroidered tapestry 296 x 96 cm - wool on jute canvas
This project began in an artistic residency in Gwangju - South Korea. Andrea Ebert wanted to know and explore what was in the ACC Library Park library. The way found would be to find the books at random and thus a grid was created in relation to the book shelves. With this grid, the artist invited people to find books at random. This filled grid became a tapestry in 2020. The embroidery stitch is the repetition of what we can see in the composition of the tapestry, from a square stitch, larger square designs are formed. Each square was embroidered independently to be undone and reconstructed at another time. This moment happened in 2022 when this tapestry was selected to be part of the Contextile International Exhibition Biennial in Guimarães. The invitation process was also carried out at the Raul Brandão Library in the same city as the exhibition and some squares were edged and re-embroidered.
The books found in both libraries can be viewed at this linkhttps://www.andreaebert.me/pontocruzduplo
Lomba
2021
Tabloid 84.1 x 59.4 cm - with seven 35mm analog photographs printed on paper
“Lomba” (word used in Portugal)
“Lombada” (word used in Brazil)
“Speed bump” (word used in English)
The title refers to a device that slows down a moving object. The method of photographing a space and things that takes time to be revealed and double exposure makes the process even slower. A desire for a longer look makes time and dust settle. The grain of the image reveals that time may not be sharp and the overlap counts on time. The tabloid on a larger scale prevents a quick passage of pages and slows down a view and turns it into a look.
The photographs were recorded in a room where the observation of the objects and the place accompanied the reading by anthropologist Tim Ingold. The "Life of Line" book was the guideline to think about things that are already there and sometimes we need time to observe what we have already absorbed and find devices to extend this time.
Link to view.
Reverse Order
2021
Platform with 38 digital books
The structure of the book has the ability to allow the reader to inhabit this universe of visual and literary language. So why not do an exercise on these two ways of communicating? Building a book from images and inviting authors to illustrate with text is a way of thinking about language and image. And that's also why I want to bring together several texts so that we can see the diversity of ideas and concepts in this format. I invited writers and people who like to write to participate in this project at the beginning of 2021. A digital book with 10 pages with colorful abstract engravings was offered to those interested in the project, so participants sent texts and these were diagrammed and placed on the digital platform . The books can be viewed at the linkhttps://www.andreaebert.me/ordem-inversa
Tilda
2020
Exhibition space measuring 1.45 square meters
Can the work be a public space? The pantry of Andrea Ebert's house turns into Tilda when it becomes public. The creation of this space inside her home raises questions about public and private space and how the artist lives in these two fields. The work began in 2020 with Luciano Ghiuta's exhibition through the Online Drawing Club in which Andrea and Luciano worked on the image, its construction and how it appears to the world. In 2021 the exhibition "Nas Pontas dos Pés" took place and in 2022 the exhibition "Viragem". Tilda also had the opportunity to do a traveling exhibition in a secondary school storage room in Cascais for 48 11th and 12th year students.
Movement
2020
Hand embroidered wool tapestry on jute canvas - 123 x 83 cm accompanied by 2’3’’ color video with sound
(...) the open world can be inhabited precisely because, wherever there is life, the separation of the interface between earth and sky gives way to mutual permeability and connectivity. What we loosely call the ground is not a coherent surface, but a zone in which air and moisture from the sky combine with substances whose source is on earth, in the ongoing formation of living things. (Tim Ingold, 2011).
How can I explore a surface without affecting and shadowing other things around me? This thought brought up lichen as an organism that spreads slowly, the way it survives and its stance on things. This work is not a representation of lichen but an exercise in imagining the transformation of things in movement, looking at the posture of living on a surface. The design was made from threads measuring 1.64 cm (the artist's height). When this thread ran out, another color was embroidered. This movement in the occupation of space was reproduced simultaneously in video format.
More information in thislink.
4’33’’
2019
Video without sound - 04:33’
“Cup your hands and cover your ears”
This phrase written at the beginning of the video suggests participation to the viewer. It could be a continuation of a participation that took place in the past between the sofa and the artist. A seemingly abandoned object asks another to bring it back to life.
There is hope for resurrection through John Cage's silent minutes, as the viewer listens to his breathing.
Object Book
2019
File folder with artist's book - 24x33 cm
From an independent artistic residency at the Gulbenkian Art Library on the collection of "artists' books" in the collection, the "Object Book" was created.
In the research carried out at the library, Andrea wanted to treat the book as an object and in the 456 books, books were counted that had a title or not on the cover, numbering or not on the inside, only text, text and image or only image. But another question arose about what those books on the shelf do. Are they really objects? Do they become a thing when a person takes them off the shelf? Does the book, when it joins a collection, become an object again?
In the article “Bringing things back to life: creative entanglements in a world of materials” by anthropologist Tim Ingold argues that objects have life and are therefore things. In this work we can see that the book can be one thing, as it is in continuous transformation. Inside a folder it can be an object, but it can become a Book-Thing when we dwell on it.
More about this project in thislink.