Continuing the work started in 2019, Duarte Ferreira and Renato Cruz Santos toured the nine islands of the archipelago to hear and see their specificities. From this exploratory work they’ve created Sístole, an exhibition that uses sound installation and photography that grabs the throb of the Azorean territory. Exploring the spaces and echoes that make up the soundscape of the Azores, Sístole offers us a sensory journey through the natural wonders of the region.

“In these dimly lit nooks and crannies, our eyes are useless and we are guided by the tune, traversing trails with no guarantee of connection or end. This constant reverberation reveals a subsoil, reminiscent of an aesthetic of chaos, a subterranean prison “as below from Hades as the earth is from the sky”, which can take us to spaces so close to the heart of the island where, at all times, other colors pump, as does the lava, the blood .

The imminence of lava flow and spat matter that once overtook the landscape with obscurity, eclipsing it from the sun, shaping and sculpting it, goes against the idyllic and predominant idea of primitive nature, of the green land. There are other colors, other textures, other limits, which circulate through arterial tunnels in constant mutation, one that Humankind, since it arrived here, has tried to explore beyond what is visible.”

RENATO CRUZ SANTOS

Renato Cruz Santos is a multidisciplinary artist from Caxinas, Portugal. In his work, Cruz Santos mostly explores the themes of memory, fictionalized imagery and also the deconstruction of reality. Much of his work is produced in his homeland where he has several long-term projects in development. He actively works in various areas of photography such as music, theater, dance and cinema - in between Porto and Lisbon.

DUARTE FERREIRA

Duarte Ferreira was born in Funchal in 1981. He’s a sound director, sound designer and sound artist. His activity has been developed with greater expression in the area of sound for documentary and animation cinema. He’s a member of the audiovisual team of the Educational Innovation Unit of the University of Porto.

He holds a degree in Audiovisual Communication Technology from ESMAE - Politécnico do Porto, in 2008, where he later taught Sound I and Sound II between 2010 and 2015. He currently lives and works in Porto.