«I was days and days without hearing or seeing anyone, I walked right there among the waters». That's how photographer João Mariano summarizes his immersion, from the source to the mouth, on the so-called Aljezur river, which rises somewhere in the Monchique mountains and flows into Amoreira beach and whose exploration resulted in the photography book “Entre as Águas”, which will be presented on Saturday, 16 October, at 17:30 pm, at the Imago gallery, in Lisbon, as part of the Imago Lisboa Photo Festival 2021.
This is João Mariano's most recent artistic project and probably the one in which he took his umbilical relationship with the territory that surrounds him further. For months on end, he walked along what is known as the Ribeira de Aljezur — shortly before meeting the sea — but which takes on many other names along the winding path that runs from the highest point of the Monchique mountains.
Man and nature with nothing to mediate between them - in an extreme relationship in several places where he seriously doubted whether another human being would have passed through there before. And with the isolation, the right time for contemplation that such a subjective work requires was allowed.
The result is an authorial record of total dedication to the landscape, as in a poem. At the same time, it reveals another dimension of the Algarve region, much less obvious and recognized.
It is João Mariano himself who, in his book, in a way, summarizes the work: «(…) the stream that rises on the northwestern slope of the Monchique mountains, next to Fóia, and winds down to Ponta Viva , on Amoreira beach, in Aljezur, has always been an emotional reference. It followed my entire childhood, adolescence and continues to accompany my existence. It was in it that I took the first dives, it was in it that I fished the first brothels, with friends, and eels with my father, it was in it that I caught small tortoises by hand, with which I played as a child… I walked along its banks and its bed over and over again. I swam and sailed in a canoe in its waters, as many others... Unconsciously, unable to resist its water appeal! Now, with this work, I have looked into her soul, I have gone deep inside her and known her even more deeply. This is my singular tribute to this zigzag earthly being filled with water, gravel, sand and rocks … (…)»
How long did this work take? Sul Informação. “Thirty years!”, João Mariano immediately replies. Or more, maybe. Because, as the photographer recalled, the first time he remembered to use the US Ribeira da Amoreira (or Chilrão, Passil, Cercas, Aljezur, depending on where it passes) as her photographic object was still studying at Ar.Co in Lisbon. But that project never materialized…until now.
"Actually, it took me more than a year." Because, he explains, it was necessary to «feel the changes and cycles of nature, the stream with a lot of water or drought. Start from the spring and go down there or the other way around. Walk along the riverbed and reach virgin places, which one would even doubt that could exist in the Algarve. That lush green, as if we were in Trás-os-Montes or in the Amazon». There were places where João Mariano had to swim in the river, others that were plowed through with the machete he had to buy, like a jungle explorer.
One of the extraordinary places is a waterfall in an almost inaccessible place: «when I saw it for the first time, there was only a trickle of water. But then it rained and I went back there», he recalls.
What João Mariano intended in his black and white photography book (which is one of the hallmarks of his work) was not to make a documentary record of the river. “My photographic language is a little subjective”, he stresses. But, so that the book was not just its most subjective expression, there are images that «show some wider angles of the landscape».
Something the book is not at all is a tour guide. As a matter of fact, explains João Mariano, his images do not give clues about the places. In its expressionist b&b, with a “Tim Burton” environment, this work that is «not documentary», but rather «subjective», invites you to immerse yourself in an oneiric Algarve that was thought to no longer exist or even never existed.
As in all João Mariano's photography books, the production and printing work is very careful. After all, these are real art objects. The cover, which the author has not yet seen after completion, is a “black on black print”, whose idea is to “reflect what I saw and felt in some rock formations along the stream. The entire universe of the river is between the waters and the cape also walks there among the waters».
After the presentation in Lisbon, on the 16th, which will be made by Giacomo Scalisi, the photographer predicts that the book will, some fifteen days later, also be presented in Aljezur and Monchique, the two municipalities that are connected by this liquid thread and whose municipalities helped to finance the publication of the work. There are no dates yet, but when there are, the Sul Informação will report that.
This is an edition of 1000eyes.pt and has the support of the Municipality of Aljezur and the Municipality of Monchique.
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