Sine Terra (variations in minor key)

Sine Terra (variations in minor key) is a video installation by José Carlos Teixeira around the sculpture O Desterrado (The Exiled), by António Soares dos Reis, which explores concepts related to the falling, multiple and fragmented identity, exile and various types of displacement. The artist proposes a new gaze at the emotions that O Desterrado (The Exiled) conveys to visitors and simultaneously presents a poetic meditation and documentary piece around the sculpture produced in Rome 150 years ago by the Museum’s patron.

José Carlos Teixeira presents two tempi: a more objective and factual one in the framing of the sculpture in situ along with the research about Soares dos Reis, combined with a more subjective and essayistic tempo – of this project’s creation and composition, stemming from his own autobiographical motivations, as an author, visual artist, and emigrant/immigrant.

The soundtrack for the video installation is played on the harpsichord by Fernando Miguel Jalôto, with pieces by Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) and Vasco Negreiros (1965), and includes the recitation in Portuguese and English of poems by Portuguese and foreign authors such as Alexandre Herculano, author of the poem Tristezas do Desterro, which inspired Soares dos Reis to sculpt O Desterrado (The Exiled).