Desenhar São Filipe [Identidades Project]

_SÃO NICOLAU sketchbook

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‘It's the second time I've been here. The first was in Chã. I behave as if I know what it's like to be here. A common illusion for those who think they can see everything at once.

I realised this when I didn't recognise the road to São Filipe. They weren't even the same ones for Chã - they made new ones. The dust, which the wind now blows into my face here in the back of the van, hinders me just as it did the first time I came here. I don't think time has touched the people I remember, only my memory, which has begun to doubt their names. I remember Lucas and William, who are no longer here on this island; Ramiro and Zenita, who are in Portela; Leão, who is everywhere and therefore, like god, we don't forget him, and whenever he appears there's a celebration! But not the others. Memories that remain only in the drawings: there was a man who knew three languages, had many children and was 84 years old; another, Montrond with a red scarf on his head, of whom I have fond memories, but not his first name. And the eyes that thought they already knew this.’

     _{Abel Mota,‘Desenhar São Filipe’, Desenhar SãoFilipe, 2021, I2ads, Porto, p.32}

‘Drawing São Filipe was what we decided to do. To record looks from the outside in, sometimes from the inside, of a city that amazes; to feel its cultural and social atmosphere on a daily basis, its afternoon silences ruminating on times gone by, living intensely those that are and projecting full of hope those that are to come. And in this rumination of times gone by through testimonies that are so present, we have been drawing and photographing the city as we saw it, as we felt it, in a brief but long look from someone who was there to experience it.’

      _{Leão Lopes,‘Desenhar São Filipe’, Desenhar SãoFilipe, 2021, I2ads, Porto, p.32}

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