The people that my mother forces me to meet

Trabalho de ProjetoThis project is a practice-based study, which emerges from its author’s personal story. As the project arises with an artistic intention, the scope of the investigation is shaped mostly after the artistic work is undergoing. Although there is always an intention in the beginning of an artistic project, chance, luck, obsession and curiosity tend to play an important role in its development and on the way, it is shaped along the research process. The idea to this project came somewhere between while I was thinking about personal narrative in visual art and my relationship about me and my mother. Therefore, the main theoretical interest in this study is concerned with the use of personal life as a source of artistic inspiration within contemporary art practice. To do that, I analyse the concept of confessional art, and artists use of their lives as a subject matter. The first part of the thesis looks at the practice of art and interpretation through the artistic practice of Tracey Emin and Sophie Calle. The second part reflects upon my own practice while developing the project The people that my mother forces me to meet. The practice results in a number of photographic portraits, each one accompanied by a story that relates the author with the person portrayed. These photographs and the stories are accompanied with objects offered by the People my mother forces me to meet and images from my family albums. The artwork will be shown in the form of an exhibition in the Casa Museu Abel Salazar and in a book