“The Island And The Ant’s Path” Exhibition at Workshop Gallery

Performance, sound and technology play a pivotal role in the work of Caetano Carvalho who arrives in Lebanon for the first time in October for his latest exhibition.

“The Island and the Ants’ Path” is part of a bigger project that aims to experiment with the creation of temporary associations among people and alternative, autonomous realities. Four people are dressed in white suits in order to hide their gender and physical features. They are given a simple set of rules: starting from the city center, they have to walk towards the south for eight hours. The four performers have a black box on their head, which makes them blind and unable to see their surroundings. They are all tied to each other with a rope (allowing a distance of one meter from each other). The last performer in the line has a black box with a small hole on it, which gives him the ability to see and thus direct the rest of the group. The positions of the performers shifts throughout the action, so that all four have the chance to experience the role of the one who sees and leads the group.

Carvalho is interested in observing and bending social systems/spaces by using a diverse range of media and technological tools that are part of our everyday life. Throughout his artistic practice, he has often aimed to break out of standard presentation methods, by situating his work in time rather than space and simultaneously engaging with the local/spatial context in which it takes place to create meaning.