“Moving between two types of memory: personal and collective, accurate and imaginary, Carla Cabanas’ work melancholically constructs itself around time, its passage, and the way it develops concepts of belonging and identity. These factors are not solely linked to the functioning of each work, but relate to the very organics of the discipline, leading the artist to attentively inquire into the origin, workings and perception of photography.”
Sérgio Fazenda Rodrigues
The Presence of Absence is an invitation to immerse into the universe of the artist Carla Cabanas, showing a selection of work between 2010 and 2020, paced with two texts by Sérgio Fazenda Rodrigues (PT) and Beatriz Alonso (ES).
The cover suggests the duality between the present and the absent that somehow materializes the very message of the title. If on one hand we feel the presence of the golden tears that allude to the kintsugi technique, on the other hand the title hides itself through the idea it conveys, being present through its graphic absence.
Kintsugi is a centuries-old method of repairing ceramics where the cracks of the broken piece, after being glued, are covered with gold, making them evident and thus giving value to the flaws and physical changes in the objects caused by time or accidents. In this white book, the marks, stains and other signs that will naturally appear point to evidence of its use, and in turn to its identity.
Inside, between pages of images and pages of text, one feels an undulation that is given by the difference in size of the pages, the type of paper and printing, adapting the reading to the content.
In this book the artist intends to share a compilation of texts and images that reflect her work but also a carefully thought object that aims to open a window inside her work, not only through its content but also as a piece.
