Annual Show "Ilhas". 2020.ISOLATION

For the fifth year in a row, we have been carrying out an annual project at our Art Center Caravel, which helps to bring together artists from our Madeira island and artists living abroad, in the form of an annual themed exhibition.

The project “Islands” was created in 2016 as an attempt to transmit a complete picture of the development of modern art in the islands, and to acquaint the public with more global trends in visual arts. Since its onset, the annual Islands exhibition has attracted more than 50 individual artists, and creative teams are already presented in the project from Portugal, Cape Verde, Brasil, Israel, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Russia, and Austria.

The decision to organize this season of “Islands” arrived spontaneously, without waiting for an official announcement. We are creating a new “Islands” sooner and sharper. This year we wish to represent only those works that were submitted by artists who have been in self-isolation since March 2020 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Unplanned and sharp, rather like the pandemic broke into our lives, cancelling all measured and thought-out cultural plans and art programmes. The word Isolation also appeared spontaneously for this season´s imposed island Insulation. Yes, seemingly at first glance it’s a repetition of a theme. However, 2017 focussed on the geographic isolation of island communities. This year, the topic of isolation is more relevant than ever and today concerns, and has touched, the lives of almost everyone on our planet – the physical isolation of ´self.``

MANIFESTA

“ILHAS 2020 -ISOLATION”

Since the outbreak of Covid-19, several safety measures have been introduced to our daily lives, some of them being more controversial than others. The face mask has been a two-sided icon of the pandemic, representing separation and censorship on one hand, and care and protection on the other.

The fine line between control and protection is being discussed as a blurred one, and all forms of social contact seem to be on a spiral of change.

Through this context, creativity strikes artists all around the globe, as a safe, and not forbidden way of organizing a collective response to human experience. Art is a powerful coping mechanism, connecting difficulties to solutions, and presenting a unique form of communication, one that can transcend language and social barriers.

Using this transcendence, Islands 2020 offers an opportunity to show how individual artists have responded to, and navigated, the enforced restrictions on personal freedom, as a result of the global pandemic.

Sara Sant, Marcos Milewski, Samuel Santos, Pedro Alves, Heidrun Edsperger, Freta NGO, Carina Mendonça, Olga Drak, Joana Fernandes, Paulo Silva, Marcela Campo , Sergey Shubin , Jose Acosta, Margarida Selvagem, Nicole Wolpher, Marta Horodniczy

Nina , CEE , Francisco Teixeira, Pedro Garcia, Celeste Flintham, Anna Pogrebtsova, Alecia Guseva, Embling -Evans

Svetlana Azernikova