Ana Loureiro

“Tell me, how was your day? Fragments of a trapped soul” is a daily series of small format photos (instax mini fujifilm) which documents and portrays my relationship with my home during the isolation days. That relationship was intense since the office, sleeping area and kitchen are all inside the same place. It is a very mysterious approach that depicts the progressive dissolution of boundaries between the house’s divisions and between what meant to remain private or public.

My body freedom was trapped inside less than 30 m2 which led to repercussions in my psychological and physical well-being.

On every photo is registered the day, month and year that it was taken followed by a word or a sentence which describes the scene or object. Sometimes in a direct way, other times subliminal and more like a mirror of my mental state with a touch of irony.

Every picture lays inside a small card box. The box symbolizes the house’s area limitation. The claustrophobic feeling of being inside a “shoe box”.

Echoic (2020) is a result of a long-term research and self-reflection about memory and space. About my relationship with the spaces I lived in since childhood and their inner memories. These memories, subsisted in a plurality of matters: in objects, in photographs or in documents. Either, in the memory that I had from the houses divisions. They were in their essence visual memories.

This time a new sensory memory was added: an echoic memory made of sounds which inhabit objects. A sensory memory which records specific auditory informations.

For over 20 years and since early years of my life, I was revisiting the same coastal region although different beaches. However, with the same involuntary act of collecting shells and with the innocent intention and believe of bringing a small piece of the ocean to home.

That was not a random souvenir. It was created by Nature and it preserves all of its characteristics. It preserves a sound from its habitat, which is audible when it is close to the ear.

At that point, the two subcategories of sensory memory – the iconic and the echoic – intersect.

Artists: Ana Loureiro & Marko Lončarević

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Project developed in the frame of Questionme&Answer initiative
Exhibition at Dessous from 17-22.09.2020

In the project Boundaries of reality was explored the relationships with our private spaces, our personal belongings and their inner characteristics. Both in the physical and virtual plans – all inside the four walls of our living space.
It is a result of the almost five months analysis of our individual experiences with our houses. That relationship was inevitably intensified due to the pandemic. That new global condition forced us to locked inside our homes for an uncertain period which leaded to new housing meanings and a lost perception of time. Home became a place not just for living our intimacy but also a main stage for outside routines and intensive virtual socializing.
This project questions the boundaries of reality: when does it start? When does it finish? Is this the true depiction of what happened or result of the imagination? Maybe, a mixture of both.
The imagination enhances the values of the reality. It is in the region of intimacy that the psychic burden dominates.

Sensory submersion

Watch the video

Video lenght: 5:37 min
3D Animation: Ana Loureiro
Cutting: Ana Loureiro
Audio: Ana Loureiro
Year: 2020