cusp.talk : Rita Silva
They told me about the lightness of your hands，2021
cusp. :
Please introduce yourself first ～ (For example, where do you live, your educational background, when did you become interested in art, or any content)
可以先简单介绍一下自己吗：）你现在居住在哪里，你的教育背景，从什么时间点开始对图像产生了兴趣，同时也可以是任何想说的。
Rita：
I was born in a village in the north of Portugal where I grew up surrounded by very superstitious people. Rituals and spells for healing and protection against the evil eye were very present in my family and in my upbringing, but I never thought much about it.
Growing up working class, I was always encouraged by my family to study hard and work in something related to science. For many years, that was my path. I was a very good student in Sciences and Technology and I ended up entering Med School, from which I dropped out before the end of the first semester.
My interest in art started while I was still in high school. I had a wonderful Philosophy teacher that pushed me out of my comfort zone. She noticed I was very shy and unable to speak with other people, so she suggested that I start doing theater, which I did.
In the theater, I was doing Brechtian pieces, a style of theater in which the audience is balanced between two modes of viewership and is forced to ask questions about the artificial environment they are observing.
Around the same period of my life, I was also becoming interested in movies. I would arrive from school and would be watching at least two to three movies a day. I don’t know how I had so much energy! I was falling deeply in love with image and performance and I couldn’t stop.
After dropping out from Med School, I was willing to study cinema and image and I ended up entering the university in my hometown where I was able to do that. There I learnt a lot, mostly in technical terms, and met people that have become very important in the way I view the world and approach life.
我出生在葡萄牙北部的一个村庄，在那里长大，周围都是非常迷信的人。在我的家庭和我的成长过程中，治疗和保护邪恶之眼的仪式和咒语非常普遍，但我之前对此从来没有想太多。
在工人阶级的成长过程中，家人总是鼓励我努力学习并从事与科学相关的工作。多年来，那是我的道路。我在科学和技术方面是一个非常好的学生，最终我进入了医学院，但在第一学期结束前我就退学了。
我对艺术的兴趣始于我还在上高中的时候。我有一位很棒的哲学老师，他把我推出了舒适区。她注意到我很害羞，不能和其他人说话，所以她建议我开始演戏，我照做了。在剧院里，我在做Brechtian式的作品，一种戏剧风格，观众在两种观众模式之间保持平衡，并被迫提出有关他们正在观察的舞台上的人造环境布景的问题。
大约在我生命的同一时期，我也对电影产生了兴趣。我从学校回来，每天至少看两到三部电影。我不知道我怎么有这么多精力！但我深深地爱上了形象和表演，无法停止。
从医学院退学后，我愿意学习电影和影像，最终我进入了家乡的大学，在那里我能够做到这一点。在那里我学到了很多东西，主要是技术方面的，并且遇到了对我看待世界和对待生活的方式来说变得非常重要的人。
Found photographs, family archives and strangers.
cusp. :
How would you describe your creation? (For example, commonly used media and techniques, focus on themes, visual style, etc.)
你会怎样讲述自己的创作：）
Rita：
I see everything I create as being interconnected between the material world and the immaterial world. All the art I create is heavily based on the process, which often is repetitive and ritualistic.
There are certain themes that keep re-emerging in my work that have to do with what it is to have attachments to people, what it is to have a sense of belonging, what it is to forge a space that you can occupy.
I mostly work with photography and writing. But I’ve been slowly diving into filmmaking and performance. I feel like performance has always somewhat been part of my work.. The way I make my photographs is very performative and staged in itself, I’m just becoming more aware of it.
我认为我创造的一切都在物质世界和非物质世界之间相互联系。我创作的所有艺术都在很大程度上基于过程，而过程通常是重复的和仪式化的。有些主题在我的作品中不断重新出现，这些主题与对人的依恋、归属感和打造一个可以占据的空间有关。
我主要从事摄影和写作。但我一直在慢慢地潜心于电影制作和表演。我觉得表演在某种程度上一直是我工作的一部分。我拍摄照片的方式非常具有表演性和舞台性，我只是越来越意识到这一点。
Embracing mother, 2021
cusp. :
What cultural/factors have influenced your creation? (e.g. literature, movies, music, games, architecture, etc.)
可以告诉大家你创作受到哪些文化和因素的影响吗？
Rita：
There are a lot of cultural factors that have influenced my practice. Poetry was one of the starting points for me, poets like Fernando Pessoa, Sylvia Plath, Anaïs Nin and Emily Dickinson had a big impact in how I process my own thoughts. I think in a very fragmented way, structured very much like a poem, a song lyric or a sequence of a movie scene. My photographs are usually connected in my mind in that way, but I give freedom to the viewer to make their own connections and narratives.
Movies of Krzysztof Kieslowski, Andrei Tarkovski, Chantal Akerman and Jonas Mekas had a big impact on me and they still do everytime I watch them. They are able to express a lot of the emotions and feelings that I’m still trying to figure out how to convey in my own work.
“Feelings are what link people together, because the word 'love' has the same meaning for everybody. Or 'fear', or 'suffering'. We all fear the same way and the same things. And we all love in the same way. That's why I tell about these things, because in all other things I immediately find division.” (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 2019, Mubi)
From blank to blank, 2020
I also get very inspired and influenced by music. Lately I’ve been completely in love and in awe with electronic French music. I love how repetitive and immersive the sounds are. They make me feel like I’m flying and allow me to daydream and construct a lot of new images in my mind. My current favourite musicians are Caterina Barbieri, Doon Kanda, Agar Agar, Mamman Sani, Chapelier Fou and Vashti Bunyan.
有很多文化因素影响了我的实践。诗歌是我的起点之一，Fernando Pessoa, Sylvia Plath, Anaïs Nin和Emily Dickinson等诗人对我处理自己思想的方式产生了重大影响。我以一种非常零碎的方式思考，结构非常像一首诗、一首歌词或一个电影场景的序列。我的照片通常以这种方式在我的脑海中联系起来，但我给观众自由来建立他们自己的联系和叙述。
Krzysztof Kieslowski、Andrei Tarkovski、Chantal Akerman 和Jonas Mekas的电影对我产生了很大的影响，而且每次我看它们时仍然如此。他们能够表达我仍在努力弄清楚如何在我自己的作品中表达的许多情绪和感受。
“感情将人们联系在一起，因为‘爱’这个词对每个人都有相同的含义。或“恐惧”或“痛苦”。我们都害怕同样的方式和同样的事情。我们都以同样的方式相爱。这就是我讲述这些事情的原因，因为在所有其他事情中，我立即发现了分歧。”
我也受到音乐的启发和影响。最近，我完全爱上了法国电子音乐并敬畏声音。我喜欢声音的重复性和沉浸感。它们让我感觉自己在飞翔，让我可以做白日梦，在脑海中构建许多新的图像。我目前最喜欢的音乐家是 Caterina Barbieri, Doon Kanda, Agar Agar, Mamman Sani, Chapelier Fou and Vashti Bunyan。
The Cellar，2020
cusp. :
Can you introduce one or two of your own works/projects in detail?
能否详细介绍自己的 1、2 件作品/项目?
Rita：
The Cellar (2020) was one of the first images I did as part of my work in progress “To Cut the Evil by The Root”.
There is this story that my grandmother has been telling me for a while, it has become very visual for me. It’s about the time when she used to walk up and down the village to give bread to the customers of the bakery she worked at. She tells me she used to walk a lot carrying all this bread around. So I knew I wanted to re-enact this feeling and for very long I didn’t know how. Until one day I woke up with the feeling I really wanted to go pick up as many sticks as I could in the forest down the village. So I went there, picked them up and walked home, losing many of them on the way.
Then I decided to go to the basement of my home, as it is one of the places I feel that has an energy of its own that could contribute to the eeriness of the image that I was imagining.
So once I was there, I started to pile up the sticks one by one, they kept falling and I kept trying to stack them up. It took me a while until I was able to have this sculpture and When I did, I set up the camera and with a little flashlight I created some nuances of light in the image. By the moment I took the photograph, I was so focused and involved with this matter that I felt like being sunked into something else for a bit.
The Cellar 2020 是我制作的第一批图像之一，这是我正在进行的工作 To Cut the Evil by The Root 从根本消除邪恶 的一部分。
有一个故事是我祖母告诉我的，它对我来说变得非常直观。她过去常常在村子里走来走去，给她工作的面包店的顾客送面包的时候。她告诉我，她过去常常带着这些面包到处走。所以我知道我想重现这种感觉，很长一段时间我都不知道该怎么做。直到有一天，我醒来时觉得我真的很想去村子里的森林里捡尽可能多的木棍。所以我去了那里，把它们捡起来走回家，路上丢了很多。
然后我决定去我家的地下室，因为它是我觉得拥有自己能量的地方之一，它可能有助于我想象的图像的诡异。
所以一旦我到了那里，我就开始一根一根地把木棍堆起来，它们不停地落下，我一直试图把它们堆起来。我花了一段时间才能够拥有这个雕塑，当我完成时，我设置了相机，并用一个小手电筒在图像中创建了一些细微的光线。到我拍这张照片的那一刻，我是如此专注和参与这件事，以至于我感觉自己陷入了其他一个世界。
Do you feel it, mother Do you see it, mother?，2021
cusp. :
Can you introduce your life and creative state? What are your special work habits? (It can include inspiration collection, daily work habits, the process from inspiration to realization, etc.)
可以讲述一下你的生活和创作状态?
Rita：
My daily life and creative state changes slightly depending if I’m in Portugal or in London. When I’m home, I wake up very early and I always start the day with coffee and a walk around the village with my dog. In the early mornings, the sky is usually foggy and the fields look mysterious and dreamy and are a big source of inspiration for me.
If I’m planning to photograph during a specific day, usually I will have the location and the set up of how I want everything to look in my mind or in a sketch. I take a lot of notes, do sketches or do voice notes to myself so I don’t forget the visual ideas I have when I’m wandering around in my thoughts. I keep a journal with me where I write down anything that might inspire me, it can be anything from a song lyric, a movie quote or a scene, a conversation I have with a family member, a friend or a stranger or even some moments of my daily life that I plan to re-enact within my artistic practice. I also spend a lot of time with my grandmother whenever I’m in Portugal, I’m one of her primary caretakers, together with my mother, and our relationship is endlessly feeding into my character and my work.
In London, I have to divide my energy and focus in many directions. The city is quite overwhelming for me at times. There’s always a lot of things to do or people to see in addition to the jobs I have to do to sustain my life and my practice. So I try to have a very focused routine where I don’t really socialize much outside work, so I have time and energy to focus on my research and my work at the studio.
根据我是在葡萄牙还是在伦敦，我的日常生活和创作状态会略有变化。当我回到家时，我很早就起床了，我总是以咖啡开始新的一天，然后带着我的狗在村子里散步。清晨的天空通常有雾，田野看起来神秘而梦幻，是我灵感的重要来源。
如果我打算在特定的一天拍摄，通常我会在我的脑海中或草图中确定我想要的一切的位置和设置。我记了很多笔记，给自己画草图或做语音笔记，这样当我在思绪中徘徊时，我不会忘记我的视觉想法。我随身携带一本日记，写下任何可能激发我灵感的东西，可以是歌词、电影台词或场景，我与家人、朋友或陌生人的对话，甚至一些片刻我计划在我的艺术实践中重现我的日常生活。每当我在葡萄牙时，我也会花很多时间和我的祖母在一起，我是她的主要看护人之一，和我的母亲一起，我们的关系无休止地影响着我的性格和工作。
在伦敦，我必须将精力和注意力集中在许多方向上。这座城市有时对我来说是压倒性的。除了我必须做的工作来维持我的生活和我的实践之外，总是有很多事情要做或看到很多人。所以我试着有一个非常专注的例行公事，我不会真正在工作之外社交，所以我有时间和精力专注于我的研究和我在工作室的工作。
Just passing through，2020
cusp. :
What are your daily hobbies?
你每天的习惯是什么？
Rita：
My daily hobbies mainly include watching a lot of movies, researching about my various interests, reading and walking (a lot) which allows me to really get to know my surroundings and observe how the light changes from day to day around the same area.
我的日常爱好主要包括看很多电影，研究我的各种兴趣，阅读和散步（很多），这让我真正了解周围的环境，观察同一区域周围每天的光线变化。
A snake comes out of the river，2020
cusp. :What is the current concern and thinking?
最近每天思考和关心的问题是什么?
Rita：
Currently I’ve been thinking a lot about health, the woman's body in the medical field and how it’s perceived and how it feels like being sick as a working class woman. These are a lot of the themes that start to be present in my own work and research and that are very close and dear to me and many of my loved ones.
There’s a lot I want to say and create regarding this, having as starting point my own experiences and of those around me. The other day I watched the movie “I, Daniel Blake” by Ken Loach and I’m still thinking about it. It talks about all these concerns in a breathtaking way, I still don’t have the words to explain how it made me feel.
目前，我一直在思考健康、女性在医学领域的身体以及如何看待它以及作为工人阶级女性生病的感觉。这些是许多开始出现在我自己的工作和研究中的主题，它们对我和我的许多亲人来说非常亲近和珍视。
关于这一点，我有很多想说和创造的东西，以我自己和我周围的人的经历为起点。前几天我看了Ken Loach的电影我，丹尼尔·布莱克 (I, Daniel Blake)，我还在想。它以令人叹为观止的方式讲述了所有这些担忧，我仍然无法解释它给我的感受。
Just Passing through，2021
cusp. :
Can you talk about favorite artists and favorite books?
可以讲讲你喜欢的艺术家和喜欢的读物吗？
Rita：
I’m constantly falling in love with new artists and works. I feel like there’s still a lot that I don’t know in terms of art or artists. Everytime I discover a new work or artist that touches the core of my soul I feel such happiness, like seeing a very bright hopeful light in front of me. Some of my favourites are Hilma af Klint, Helena Almeida, Raymond Meeks, Justine Kurland, Céline Duval and Paula Rego.
There are also some books that have became quite important for my practice, such as Anne Boyer’s “The Handbook of Disappointed Fate”, Carol Mavor’s “Blue Mythologies”, Ocean Vuong’s “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous”, Gaston Bachelard’s “The Poetics of Space” and Silvia Fedirici’s “Caliban and the Witch”.
我不断地爱上新的艺术家和作品。我觉得在艺术或艺术家方面我还有很多不知道的地方。每当我发现一件触动我灵魂核心的新作品或新艺术家时，我都会感到如此幸福，就像在我面前看到一道非常明亮的希望之光。
我最喜欢的一些是Hilma af Klint、Helena Almeida、Raymond Meeks、Justine Kurland、Céline Duval 和 Paula Rego。
还有一些书对我的实践非常重要，例如Anne Boyer的The Handbook of Disappointed Fate、Carol Mavor的Blue Mythologies、Ocean Vuong的On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous、Gaston Bachelard的The Poetics of Space 和Silvia Fedirici的Caliban and the Witch。
Mother and grandmother in the kitchen，2020
cusp. :
What do you think is the happiest thing you have ever encountered?
觉得遇到过最开心的事情？
Rita：
I have this memory of when I was around 5 or 6. I was staying with my parents and my brother in Sintra, a city close to Lisbon that is known for its mystical stories. One night, there was a Lunar Eclipse happening, so all of us went up to the rooftop and just stayed there observing it. The sky was so clear that even all the stars seemed to be there to experience this moment. There was such a peaceful atmosphere and all I could hear was the night summer insects in the surrounding fields. It’s still one of the happiest things I have encountered to this day.
我有这样的记忆，大约在我 5 或 6 岁的时候。我和我的父母和我的兄弟住在辛特拉，一个靠近里斯本的城市，以其神秘的故事而闻名。一天晚上，发生了月食，所以我们所有人都爬上屋顶，呆在那里观察。天空是如此的晴朗，就连所有的星星都仿佛都在那里经历了这一刻。气氛如此平静，我只能听到周围田野里夜间夏季的昆虫。这仍然是我迄今为止遇到的最快乐的事情之一。
Kiss me like you mean it，2020
cusp. :
Talk about future plans?
你未来的规划是什么？
Rita：
I don’t really like talking about the future too much. I have a lot of things I want to do and that I’m very excited about, but it’s hard to share them when they are still in an incubating phase.
I plan to keep on developing my work around the ideas I talked about above, there are still a lot of questions for me regarding some themes I keep exploring and as long as there is a question or sense of discomfort, I will feel the need to dig up around it. It feels like photography will always be present in my practice. However, I feel closer and closer to the moment where I will be using film for some of my works and I hope to be brave enough to be more public about performances I’ve planned. I also want to dive into the creation of photobooks, I feel like my current work in progress “To Cut the Evil by the Root” will finally be done when I can make it into a photobook.
我不太喜欢谈论未来。我有很多想做的事情，我很兴奋，但是当它们仍处于孵化阶段时，很难分享它们。
我计划围绕我上面谈到的想法继续发展我的工作，关于我一直在探索的一些主题，我仍然有很多问题，只要有问题或不舒服，我就会觉得有必要在它周围挖掘。感觉摄影将永远存在于我的实践中。然而，我觉得离我将在我的一些作品中使用电影的那一刻越来越近了，我希望能够勇敢地公开我计划的表演。我也想进入摄影书的创作，我觉得我现在正在进行的作品 To Cut the Evil by The Root 终于可以做成一本摄影书了。
Snake form cut the evil by root，2020
cusp. :
Can you talk about your views on the theme of this exhibition? How to connect with your own work?
这次展览主题森林和夜晚的看法？如何和自己的作品联系？
Rita：
When I was invited to this exhibition I was extremely flattered and happy as I felt an instant connection to its theme. La Nuit et la forêt and its focus on Nature and how it’s perceived by each one of the artists rings very true to my own work. The environment surrounding me has always been a part of my work, mostly the fields near my home where I grew up. In my family, elements of nature are used for healing and protection. My maternal grandmother has been doing little packages containing herbs from our surroundings that are supposed to protect me from evil since I was a little. And recently I started to do these packages for my friends, as an act of care. And my paternal grandmother used to be a healer in our village, resorting to natural remedies and the spoken word to heal whoever reached her. In a way, I make my work re-enacting these connections and memories, as if I’m performing an act, an auto-sacrifice tied to vulnerability and self-exposure, a ritual to discharge something long held in the body. This kind of relationship “releases nature from confinement between matter and imagination and places it in a spiritual realm to recount.” (Forest and Religion, 2021, Cusp).
当我被邀请参加这个展览时，我感到非常欣喜，因为我立即感受到了与它的主题的联系。La Nuit et la forêt 及其对自然的关注以及每位艺术家对自然的看法与我自己的作品非常吻合。我周围的环境一直是我工作的一部分，主要是我长大的家附近的田野。在我的家庭中，自然元素被用于治疗和保护。我的外祖母一直在做一些小包装，里面装着我们周围的草药，从我很小的时候起，就应该保护我免受邪恶的侵害。最近我开始为我的朋友做这些包裹，作为一种关怀。我的祖母曾经是我们村的一名治疗师，诉诸自然疗法和口头语言来治愈任何接触她的人。在某种程度上，我让我的作品重现这些联系和记忆，就好像我在表演一种行为，一种与脆弱性和自我暴露相关的自我牺牲，一种释放长期留在体内的东西的仪式。这些和展览分区的阐述“将自然从物质和想象的束缚中解放出来，将其置于精神境界中进行叙述”。（森林与宗教，2021 年，cusp.）相互关联。
Cloth from blank to blank，2020
Thank you Rita! ©️Rita Silva