Matérias / Luísa Ferreira

One night in a bar in Bairro Alto in Lisboa, my friend J. F. N. told me that he had the key to the carpentry shop at Central Tejo in Belém. I said that I would very much like to go there and photograph and introduce bodies into the deactivated space. João invited his ex-boyfriend and we went there on the 8th of September 1991. We spent the day there. I followed them through the space they were feeling and experiencing until exhaustion. They went undressing, mixing their bodies with the materials. Matter impregnated their bodies. Bodies became matter. I watched and I photographed. A spontaneous performance in an abandoned industrial space. Iron, wood, sawdust, stairs, white sheet, objects, dust, light. The heat of summer and the humidity of the river turned everything into matter. The experience of the body in contact with iron, with wood shavings, the reunion, being there like a voyeur, not provoking, letting it flow. A sweet slow dance.