Remembering some of the actions that marked each stage of the construction of this place is a very pleasant journey.
The moments full of emotions, relaxation, affection, exchanges, breaks, care, desires and distances, are like relics of encounters and farewells.
These paths are also dust and footprints, they are empty bottles and stains on clothes, they are wounds on the skin and hair on the ground, or even, they are pretexts to continue experimenting freely, in the hope of finding you again, of being able to build a new space. I still believe it: maybe soon the barriers that still separate us will become more fluid, maybe what was meant to be here now, will be for later, or simply elsewhere. So we keep walking, together.
– Gabriel Moraes Aquino
The journey inside oneself is important for Gabriel Moraes Aquino. His works unfold step by step a reflection on the body, on our way of being, of learning and reading, on the socium and finally on the world in all its diversity of intertwined cultures. His very sharp and sometimes elusive gesture unfolds in series of actions, photos, sculptures and videos, as a way to provoke a debate, a collective discussion.
For Gabriel Moraes Aquino, art is part of his being and his wanderings. In his life as in his artistic practice, punctuated by stays in several countries: Brazil, China, England, France, Portugal, Japan, he seeks to impregnate himself with the environment and social cues by melting entirely into the place where he is. His willingness to almost digest the culture of others, which manifests itself through his speech and attitude, is very similar to Oswald de Andrade's Anthropophagous Manifesto. De Andrade used the metaphor of anthropophagy in this manifesto to introduce the idea of simultaneous liberation and assimilation. Does the cultural cannibalism of today still allow for the emancipation that unifies us politically, socially and economically? (...)
– Extract from the text written by Anastasia Krizanovska, published on PAUSE, edition Nº1