Images produced by the professor at the Institute of Arts range from playful to conceptual
A common practice among tourists is to bring a souvenir of places visited for family and friends. Generally, they are characteristic objects, sold as souvenirs, which take on the most varied formats. Among the most common are those that refer to a tourist attraction or those, sold in museums or cultural spaces, that reproduce works of art.
These objects were the source of inspiration for the 60 photographs collected in the book Souvenirs, by Fernando de Tacca, which will be released tomorrow (7), by Editora da Unicamp. For eight years, the photographer and professor at Unicamp's Institute of Arts (IA) produced playful, playful, intriguing, affective or conceptual images based on souvenirs he received as gifts from friends or acquired on his travels.
The first of them was a cup with a reproduction of “Lágrimas”, a famous photograph by Man Ray, presented by historian and art critic Jorge Coli, who signed one of the book's presentation texts. "That souvenir, which triggered the project, goes back to the professional relationship I have with photography. When I won, I put it on a shelf, as is usually done”, says Fernando de Tacca.
He once produced a cover “Studium” magazine, specializing in photography and of which he is editor, and had the idea of using the cup. “The publication’s covers are interactive and eye-catching. Then I turned the cup over onto a saucer and placed the saucer on a plate. There was the photo!” The experience did not end there. On the contrary, it generated restlessness and reflection.
As the photographer points out, souvenir It's a French word. It is a verb (remember) and also a noun (memory). Both refer to memories, to the memory of a fact; a memory that can be affective, monumental or historical. “Human cultures, since a long time ago, have used objects to mark events and encounters. Coins, for example, commemorate important events.”
With the advent of photography, the cultural industry and the spread of tourism, the souvenir It has assumed its current contours: a commodity produced (and reproduced) on a large scale, but which maintains a load of remembrance, of memory. “It is a sign that represents something that is in the place of another. This something can be a historical monument, a work of art or something with an emotional meaning for those who offer it as a gift and for those who receive it”, says Fernando de Tacca. An example is the Eiffel Tower in Paris. “It is one of the most reproduced icons in our recent history. At the end of the 19th century, a coin was printed as souvenir for visitors to the monument.”
This type of practice, analyzes the photographer, ended up fueling a large industry around cultural goods. An example of this are stores in museums, generally located in the hall entrance, before visitors have access to the galleries. “They are huge, similar to duty free shops of airports. First, people come into contact with the reproductions and then with the works.”
He says he started going to these stores, looking for replicas of works of art and objects associated with them. “I wanted pieces capable of evoking a memory. It could be any element. A t-shirt, a card, a fridge magnet or something more sophisticated.” One souvenir encouraged him to look for another. Furthermore, his friends began to give him these objects as gifts. In this way, Fernando de Tacca set up a “cabinet of curiosities”, made up of all types of travel souvenirs, the most banal – such as flyers and refrigerator magnets – to sculptures and jewelry.
The pieces inspired him to create photographs. “It has always been a playful process with the production of natural light. In each image, I used the elements and light available at the time,” he explains. “There was no previous concept. Action and thought went together in the project.”
The intention, explains the photographer, is to establish a dialogue between the remembrances. “[Jean] Baudrillard states that objects in an environment talk to each other. However, this dialogue can be tense, calm, and jocular. The possibilities are endless.”
To this extent, by enhancing symbolic dimensions, Souvenirs promotes a displacement of objects beyond their memorial importance linked to the cultural industry. “The changes of location of souvenirs place them in new situations, expanding their place in the imagination of their referents”, explains the photographer.
In other words, explains Fernando de Tacca, the souvenirs they are cultural objects “that support a range of social and historical meanings that feed an ideological superstructure focused on determined values enshrined in museums and in the areas of cultural tourism”. According to him, changing the meaning of a souvenir, placing it in a relational game with other objects, is a contemporary stance of breaking codes and determinations. And it makes the image viewer an active subject in the complex and subjective game between images.
“In the book, objects are placed in expanded contexts, creating strangeness and creating new meanings, at the same time that the viewer of the image is placed within a game of relationships, establishing a playful game between the elements of the image”.
Thus, Souvenirs It is an invitation work for the observer to participate in the relationships created between the objects that make up the photograph, establishing meanings between them. “Some relationships are obvious, others less so. There are also those that may only be understandable to those who know the object itself or its history.” To avoid inducing the reader to one or the other interpretation, the photographs do not have captions, only descriptions of the objects that compose them at the end of the book.
Service
Degree: Souvenirs
Author Fernando de Tacca
pages: 144
Publishing house from Unicamp
Launch
Order date: August 7th, XNUMX
Open Hours: From 13pm
Location: IA Art Gallery – Unicamp (ground floor of the Central Library)
Address: Rua Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, s/nº
