EXERCICIO DE VOO — Rafaela Lima

Exhibition view, DOS ZERO AOS CINCO MIL PÉS – A ESCALA ENQUANTO EXERCÍCIO IMAGINATIVO (Master’s Project Presentation), oMuseu, Faculty of Fine Arts – University of Porto.

SCULPTURE // INSTALLATION

Exercício de voo nº. 1 (2023) arose from the dazzling idea of setting my sights on an altitude I had never experienced before. Being in the limbo, between what has been done and what you want to do, is the perfect fuel to feed a desire that you want to keep in suspension.

The dazzle for altitude, for the loss of scale, is part of the fascination over aerial views that I have long felt. Ambiguity takes shape in these images that reveal nothing completely obvious. They could be taken at ten thousand feet or one meter off the ground. Deep down, they are nothing more than small dots and constellations of figures that blur the boundaries between a handful of grains of sand and a cluster of buildings.

In this first flignt, I project that altitude desire. We find ourselves traveling over thoughts and formulating random itineraries, but this project is numbered here as the first exercise because it was truly the first flight, conscious of its purpose. Here, that desire materializes in a 40cm-high device that rotates a spotlight 360° on itself; placed on the same axis, a small sculpted airplane points its nose downwards, as if it has just completed its flight. This plane, sculpted to the image of what I remember from the watermarks on 16-gram blue airmail papers, doesn't look for similarities with other commercial or military planes. This is a plane of dreams and desires. In a downward movement, it is standing still, suspended above the device that illuminates it. Looking up: its shadow, cut out in the center of a glowing ellipse that runs along the walls and ceiling of the room.

In a series of shifting movements we witness this limbo: between standing still and projecting a flight through the same body.

Work displayed at EU VI O BRILHO (Collective Exhibition, 2023, o Bueiro, Porto) and DOS ZERO AOS CINCO MIL PÉS – A ESCALA ENQUANTO EXERCÍCIO IMAGINATIVO (Master’s Project Presentation, 2023, o Museu – FBAUP, Porto).