LESMA – Slow Photography Fest

caption (image above): some of the posters created for LESMA.

Whatever the projects we get ourselves into, there’s always a decent amount of negligence involved, isn’t there? That’s how I feel when I think of this recent project I got myself into – LESMA (slug). Obviously, instead of “negligence”, I could have chosen a more crowd-pleasing word like “madness” or “uncertainty”, but the thing is when I get myself into these big projects I only do it because I choose not to care about how much work their´re going to need to be brought to life. It’s a choice, though some ignorance is also involved. I know I can usually rise to the tasks and I’m pretty much an workaholic, so this sort of thing is right up my alley. When things get really hectic, I breathe and try to think about all the learning and joy that’s been involved in the process. Stop for some time and get ready for the next stupid idea. Negligence is usually towards my sanity and whatever is left of my private life, but dealing with grief these days, the extra work has come in handy, to help focus on other things. 

LESMA was born during the first confinement, around April 2020. I had this stupid idea, talked about it with my colleague at the Association and went with it: made some calls, wrote some texts and the sketch was done. There’s been a lot of changes since then, but LESMA will finally happen this September, about a year and a half latter, still with a great deal of uncertainty (regarding covid-related restrictions).

The original idea was to create a temporary space/zone/time where people could get together and celebrate slow photography, in a small and friendly environment, favouring personal contact and, thus, celebrating the creative atoms that storm out of the people invited to participate. Whatever will happen during this happening will be something else and that’s to be expected. Once we get things rolling, they gain their own lives and, though there’s always a tolerable amount of stress involved, it’s been fun to watch it come to life.

As conversations went on about the Festival, I found myself wandering about most people’s necessity to formulate an expectation of continuity. It’s not a surprise, of course, most people like to think about creating a legacy or leaving some mark in history, though not me. LESMA was not only created to celebrate slow photography, but also ephemerality. The event itself, as some of the artwork involved, is ephemeral. As I see it, that’s part of the joy. On that note, what I’d like to share here, today, is the first major project (LESMA-related) that is now concluded. I had the insane idea of making 200 unique, ephemeral posters and there we went into this crazy ride. We invited our friends at another Association – Oficina do Cego – to create the posters with linocut and typography and Paula and I then intervened in each of them with anthotypes. All about the posters here.

Some crazy artworks are on the making in the context of LESMA, so I’ll be returning with some updates on that negligence and madness I was talking about.