The Fortaleza de Sagres store has already reopened and, in addition to products from merchandising on Sagres, the Algarve and Portugal, it also presents, right at the entrance, a sculptural installation by Marc Parchow, entitled «Impermanências».
There are six pieces in «birch plywood, finishing in mass of joints and white paint», as the artist explains, starting from the «finite geometry of the cube», to an «infinite geography», of flying birds, illuminated by the skylight of the building. That is, one more reason to visit the monument and enter the store.
This Monday, the 5th of November, and after just over a month of operation, the store will be granted, after a tender, by the Regional Directorate of Culture of the Algarve to the company Map of Ideas - Publications Editions, was officially inaugurated, with a cocktail party that brought together official entities, such as the regional director of Culture Alexandra Gonçalves and the coordinator of Fortaleza de Sagres, Luciano Rafael, mayors, as the vice president of Vila do Bispo Rute Silva, the two partners responsible for the store, its suppliers, artists and other friends.
The regional director Alexandra Gonçalves underlined the importance of the most visited monument in the Algarve and even in the south of the Tagus, once again having a shop that allows visitors to «take a souvenir of our territory from here, to their lands». "It's beautiful to have the house full, renovated, with appealing products about the history of the Algarve and our country," he added.
A company Ideas Map, who is also responsible for the shop and cafeteria of the Museu da Marinha, in Lisbon, and has other projects in the area of cultural and public management, in museums and beyond, is therefore not new to these ventures.
Inês Câmara, one of the partners, stressed that "these last two months have been a roller coaster", but that everything is going well due to the "fantastic team we have and the suppliers that work side by side with us". “Our products have a face and we know who made them”, he stressed.
The businesswoman added that the opening of the store in Sagres fortress entailed the creation of three jobs. For all these reasons, the official opening of the space was “a happy moment”.
Impermanence, Marc Parchow, 2018
Six pieces in birch plywood, grout finish and white paint
Beyond the cliff, there is no fixed point. Everything is mobile. In this (non-)place, man cannot establish himself. The domain of wind and sea is, for us, just a place of passage.
The peculiar boundary condition that Sagres materializes, between the stable domain of man and the aerial and ephemeral domain of the wind and the sea, was what set the tone for the six pieces entitled Impermanência, which find their main inspiration in this polarity.
In sequence, they tell the story of the physical transformation of a cube, which represents the paradigmatic geometry of man, into a seabird, symbol of wind and sea.
The cube is at the height of the eyes of those who enter and represents the solidity of the earth, grave and slow, (our) known world, a territory of stability floating in the cosmic void. A quiet, contained force emanates from him, which paradoxically alerts to a potential prison, to a dense energy that attracts to stagnation and where finitude reigns.
All inertia is trapped motion. It calls for restlessness, flight, flight.
From the finite geometry of the cube, an infinite geography emerges. The energy of the movement progresses in an escape trajectory, the tracing of which is described by a six-step metamorphic spiral.
Each new form draws the lines of its own becoming in space. The cycle of transformations guides the gaze upwards – always upwards –, following the fleeing body, the blind force that has infinity as its aim.
The transformation of the initial cube into a bird – the last body that completes the metamorphosis and which is found under the skylight (light, immateriality, freedom) – points the visitor towards the interior of the store, but also beyond it, towards the open sea, territory of the incognito, the wild, symbol of freedom and instinct, curiosity and dream.
(text by the artist Marc Parchow)
Photos: Elisabete Rodrigues | Sul Informação (unless otherwise indicated)
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