The core idea of the residency (August to October 2015) is to create an archive of everything that is secondary in the production process, disclosing methodologies and processes that often disappear during production, and establishing alternative narratives to the work process.
The aim is to cross the facades of fabrication, in an attempt to go beyond what is intended to be presented, and explore the catalysed abstraction often neglected but nevertheless constitutes an integral part of the cultural landscape. The project therefore consists of a research on the neglected and omitted sides of production and fabrication, and then display the aesthetic properties that are visceral to the location, but often hidden within selective processes.
The artist will create surfaces and supports and will be inserted in several production plants where the workers will endeavour their assembling and production activities. These supports and surfaces will and be collected after one month, functioning as an interference in the working space, recording their actions, and therefore encrypting marks that are done during fabrication/production. Other relevant documents and objects collected during this period will also be presented, A focus on the encryption of these activities and neglected products, as well as refused materials, will not only create ephemeral relations in between different fields of production and their agents, but will help the artist to discharge the produced artworks from personal aesthetic directions, highlighting instead the aesthetic properties of human action, error, failure, effort, and fabrication in general.
About João Vasco Paiva
João Vasco Paiva (Coimbra, 1979) lives and works in Hong Kong and Lisbon.
With a background in painting and advanced training in media techniques, his work is characterised by the appropriation of observed phenomena, mapping apparently random situations and presenting them in an aesthetically organised framework. He has taught at the City University of Hong Kong School of Creative Media and Hong Kong Art School/ RMIT University, and has given seminars at the Architecture Department of the American University of Sharjah, and at Goldsmiths University in London. His work has been widely shown in places such as: Athens, Beijing, Berlin, Budapest, Lisbon, Lyon, London, Moscow, New York, Prague, Rotterdam, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Shanghai, Sharjah, among others. Recently, Paiva was selected for the Encounters section of Art Basel Hong Kong completed a residency at Lichtenberg Studios, Berlin and was part of a group exhibition at the Witte de With, Rotterdam as well at Artsonge Seoul, OCT Contemporary Art Terminal, Shanghai and MAAP, Brisbane. Furthermore Paiva held a major solo exhibition at the Orient Foundation in Macau.
Finally, Paiva is the recipient of multiple awards, including the Hong Kong Emerging Artist Grant, the Investigation Scholarship by Fundaçao Oriente and the International Artist Support Grant awarded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Portugal.