a blog about photography by Sofia Silva
caption: unknown author, at Stockholm Pride Festival In the past few weeks several events concerning cultural appropriation have motivated public discussions. I’ll be focusing on three: Gucci’s blackface jumper, Amanda Lind‘s dreadlocks and Donata Meirelles birthday photograph with two black women wearing traditional Bahian outfits. The fact that I’m appropriating these events in order to talk about cultural…
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Propaganda has been a recurrent theme in my life since June 2018 when we, at Propeller, decided that should be the theme for the following edition, which will finally be out on february 20th. I’m also working on the theme with undergraduate students in the context of a larger project about media and photography’s relation…
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caption: Oliviero Toscani for Benetton, 1992. In 1982 the Mafia killing of Benedetto Grado in Palermo, Italy, was captured by Franco Zecchi. Ten years later the image was featured in Benetton’s spring/summer 1992 campaign. Various publications refused to publish the image and the dead man’s daughter claimed she would sue, asking: “How does my father’s…
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caption: © Ruth van Beek, The Situation Room (Two figures), 2018. When I regard van Beek‘s collages I immediately know they were made by a woman. There’s a feminine sensibility at play, an heritage of affective labour that is put to work. This idea of a visual heritage is not a reference to a nostalgic…
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caption: Anatomy Museum in the University of Edinburgh Medical School, Teviot Place. Photo by Sir Robert Rowand Anderson, 1898. [no hablo espanol] dá nome a uma categoria de posts do Nihil que passarão a ser escritos na Língua-mãe e se desviarão da orientação temática da casa: a Fotografia. Não sou professora no ensino superior há muito…
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caption: image illustrating an article @ Time.com, entitled TIME’s 25 Best Photobooks of 2018. The first sentence of the article reads: “As an antidote to your unyielding Instagram feed, consider the photobook.” I’ve been thinking about photography’s relationship with digital design in the twenty-first century. After some considerations and discussions with colleagues and students I…
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caption: Exhibition View. Novo Banco Foto at Museu Colecção Berardo, 2016. Mónica de Miranda. Photography David Rato. The Novo Banco Photo prize has become one of the key moments of the year in Portugal for the consecration of an artistic practice. […] The artists selected for this exhibition are: Félix Mula, Mozambique; Mónica de Miranda, Angola and…
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caption: © Pierre Gonnord, “Ali” 148 x 125 cm. Color photograph under plexiglass, framed. I’ve had this portrait hovering in my desktop since November. From then on, I kept avoiding identifying the author and seeing further work, already suspecting my enthusiasm would be cut to shreds. It was and it wasn’t. I’m clearly not…
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Searching the web for author Glorija Lizde (b. 1991, Croatia), whose work Persona(L) I came to know in December due to Parallel Review, I was surprised to find a particular essay accompanying her project F20.5 (2016-2018). That particular text, published at Hulu-Split, is an excerpt from Ana Peraica‘s Culture of the Selfie: Self-Representation in Contemporary Visual Culture. But before…
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Right before the year comes to an end, every online platform rushes to publish their best-of lists. Excited, editors exchange reviews and debate on their conclusions. The most this, the most that, the best photographs, best exhibitions, best books… It’s guaranteed that the photography market will be alive and kicking for another year. As for…
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It’s a new year and I’m back at Nihilsentimentalgia with the usual suspects: photography and death. No surprises there. My oldest dog, Ghost, died last week. To be fair, I killed him. As I made the choice I thought I’d have to assist him in his last breath. That decision led to the creation of…
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I’ve been following Nihilsentimentalgia for the past six years or so. I visit the blog every two or three months and read an entry or two. It’s an open but stable relationship. It seemed that every time I read the blog there are texts exactly matching the issues I currently grapple with, like a creepy…
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I’ve started this post two months ago and since then Nihilsentimentalgia has been as slow as it gets. I’ve been wondering whether this blog should take a break. Being its tenth year, I thought I’d be motivated to write with a certain cadence, but the opposite has happened. I’m feeling overwhelmed by images and I’m…
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My understanding of one history of art is just not there. There are many reasons for that and no need to address any of them. Now I find myself discovering Ewa Kuryluk’s work (via books and internet) and I fail to make sense of this late encounter. Why not sooner? I arrived at Kuryluk’s work…
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While updating some info on Nihil’s early posts I came across a post featuring an image by Alex Kisilevich. It seemed weird to have a post with a single image and as I went looking for more, I found not only that I made a second post a year after that but, and that’s the…
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I first cross paths with Jordan Baumgarten‘s Good Sick at bjp online and one of the photographs stroke me, not for the best of reasons. I kept thinking about it. As I went back to have a proper look at the project, I came across Pete Brook’s writing on that same work and that finally…
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nãooriginais Igor’s statement nãooriginais proposes a quasi-purist exercise of photography (realism), to the point of expanding Duchamp’s proposal of readymades – taking into account that his work is fundamentally photographic, analyzing through photography as a trait of a real and the pragmatic of the index of R.Barthes – and to make the image of the…
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STILL… Philip’s statement The girl has a question for the boy: “How much do you love me?” He thinks for a moment, then quietly replies, “As much as a train whistle in the night.” She waits in silence for him to go on. Obviously there has to be a story there. – Murakami Haruki, Feb…
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SATELUCO Dante’s statement A self-referential photographic analysis of middle-class suburban Mexico City, based on past relationships with people and urban space, that seeks to establish a visual dialogue with them in the present day. I examine social stratification of the Mexican culture in Sateluco. This project, which received the acquisition prize of the XII Photography…
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ZONA – An Investigation Report Fabio’s statement After the housing crisis caused by the economic and political power, the housing authority decided to open an investigation to assess its consequences. Given that previous reports were ambiguous, fieldwork was needed. Thus an investigator was sent to ZONA with the specific aim of preparing a visual report on…
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First posts were made exactly ten years ago (and what a strange day I chose to start this – it’s Portugal’s national day…). As I go through those first years, I realize I never once addressed Cindy Sherman’s photographs, which is surprising, for at the time she was an inspiration. The other day, while in…
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By now, those who follow ASX will have probably come across Brad Feuerhelm’s passionate article about the femicide and drugs in Mexico and d’Agata’s Codex: Mexico 1986-2016. It’s a strong piece of writing, you won’t regret taking the time to read it. When I first saw the title I suspected I would end up writing about…
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Ever since I left Glasgow, I”ve tried to keep up, at a distance, with what artists are doing there and by this time of the year, with the Degree Show happening at GSA, there’s always something worth seeing. The last degree show I saw in Glasgow I remember being very impressed with a particular work…
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Everything is workshopable these days. It’s an amazing thing. We can either learn to do things watching youtube videos or we can learn pretty much every technique attending workshops about this and that. As I see it, there’s clearly something weird about this. I’m not sure what it is, but somehow it affects the way…
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photo: Palestinian mourners carry the body of eight-month-old Palestinian baby Leila Anwar Ghandoour, who died from tear gas inhalation in Gaza City on 15 May 2018 [Mustafa Hassona/Anadolu Agency] As of Sunday, a succession of events has once again reanimated a question that often comes to mind, namely: what would make me go into exile? Throughout…
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I met Duarte and Valter when doing my undergrad in photography. Both were my teachers and tutors and for quite some time that was the role assigned to them. In September 2008 brief notes were made about both of them. At the time, Valter was working with José Nuno Lamas, exploring landscape, performance and play. Duarte was finding his…
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Before advancing, I feel I must apologize for this confessional note. Really, if you haven’t been a reader of Nihil, do yourself a favor and stop reading; this exposure of the private life of Nihil will make little sense in any case. I’ve been suffering from a strange set of headaches that bring along an…
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Throughout this year, I’ll be publishing reader’s posts. To start, here is an article by one of Nihilsentimentalgia’s dearest readers: Robin Cracknell. When I first discovered Nihilsentimentalgia, I was a very different person. I had just had my first solo show in London, two more in the works, every day in my diary pencilled-in…
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Throughout this year, I’ll be publishing reader’s posts. Here is an article by one of Nihilsentimentalgia’s special readers: Jonathan Morse. Seen below, one of history’s little ruins: evidence that in or after 1915, something pressed itself upon a glass photographic negative and broke it. When the cracks radiated through the negative’s matrix and tore…
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What happens inside our homes, in the domestic environment, is something that truly fascinates me, particularly when considering how that intimate environment can be brought into the public sphere, with integrity and respect. In the first months of Nihilsentimentalgia that was pretty obvious. I shared artwork by Esko Manniko, Holly Lynton, Tina Barney, Melissa Ann…
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Dating from mid 90’s, Richard Billingham‘s project Ray’s a Laugh is still a reference to me and I always show it to students whenever we address the art of documenting intimate stories and domestic environments. Ray’s a Laugh is a project about Richard’s father Ray and his mother Liz and their life indoors. If what Billingham…
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As Nihilsentimentalgia’s early readers know well, at the core of this platform is an interest for the idea of phototherapy and, consequently, different approaches to the idea of self. Throughout the years, I’ve done my experiments using photography as a personal therapeutic tool and I’ve come to the conclusion that it doesn’t really work for…
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