Decadence - Jéssica Burrinha

For the Ineligible exhibition at the International Museum of Contemporary Sculpture (MIEC) in Santo Tirso, Portugal (March-September, 2020), Portuguese sculpture Jéssica Burrinha made Decadence. The work  explores matters of location, presence, movement, and spatial dislocation. Decadence examines the ways that stories and memories (like objects) remain preserved (literally) underfoot, waiting for someone to discover them and to offer interpretation. For Burrinha, the stories once left behind, and which are now underground and underfoot, connect to the people and communities who, once having lived in a place, were then often exploited and displaced from it. The connection here is between people, the ground that they live on, and the memories that are left behind. In its form and constituent materials (a squared, steeply-angled column made of cement, earth, and crushed, blue-patterned porcelain) Decadence reveals the materiality of those memories (the porcelain) trapped between layers of construction material and soil. As installed at (MIEC), the work leans precariously towards the museum visitor, as if about to tumble forward; its precarious position arrests the viewer’s eyes, perhaps with worry, more certainly with questions about place, ground, and the stories of long-disappeared individuals, families, and their communities.

In line with the goals and methods of Ineligible, Jéssica disarticulated and repurposed (formerly archaeological materials) sent to her by the exhibition curators. See these video clips for a glimpse at these processes:

Making Decadence - disarticulation

Making Decadence - repurposing A

Making Decadence - repurposing B

Making Decadence - unframing

For more information about Jéssica and her work, visit her website:

http://www.jessicaburrinha.com

The Ineligible exhibition at MIEC that was one part of the Creative (un)makings: Disruptions in Art/archaeology show co-curated by Doug Bailey and Sara Navarro. For more information about Creative (un)makings, follow these links:

Museum exhibition description

Portuguese TV spot about opening of Ineligible

Other Featured Work from Ineligible that have been featured on artarchaeologies include the following:

Remember Wounded Knee (Laurent Oliver)

Omission: Sterile Landscape (Tiago Costa)

Door Knob (hand held) (Ilana Crispi)

L OST and FOOUND (Shaun Caton)

José Pedro’s Toolbox (Rui Gomes Coelho)

The catalogue from the Creative (un)makings: Disruptions in Art/Archaeology exhibition in which Ineligible was installed is available as a free pdf download through the following link:

Bailey, D.W., Navarro, S. and Moreira, A. 2020. Creative (un)makings: Disruptions in Art/Archaeology. Santo Tirso: International Museum of Contemporary Sculpture.

One part of the Creative (un)makings exhibition was a conference addressing the issues of the installation. Free pdfs are available of the conference book through the following link:

Bailey, D.W., Navarro, S. and Moreira. A (eds). 2020. Art/Archaeology: Beyond the Archaeology of Art. Santo Tirso: International Museum of Contemporary Sculpture.

If you are interested in participating in the Ineligible Project and using disarticulated (former) archaeological materials to create original work that has disruptive social and political impact, then email dwbailey@sfsu.edu with the subject line Ineligible Contributor Request.