Bienal'25 Fotografia do Porto
Centro Português de Fotografia
15.05 → 29.06.2025
We are excited to present Smith’s Dami (Imago), part of the three-year project Out of the Metropolis, now showing at Bienal Fotografia do Porto within the collective exhibition Lightseekers, curated by Sergio Valenzuela-Escobedo.
Dami (Imago) is a series of videos created in collaboration with cinematographer Josée Deshaies, as part of an installation initially created with Finnish architect Sami Rintala and French, British, and Algerian curator Taous Dahmani, with sound design by Akira Rabelais. This project is part of "Out of the Metropolis" at Noua in Bødo (Norway), within the framework of Bodø2024 - European Capital of Culture.
Imago is part of an ongoing artistic exploration by the artist SMITH, lens-based and deeply research-driven, initially conceived as part of a larger project called Dami. It embodies the artist's investigation into metaphysical and existential themes, specifically focusing on the connection between humanity, consciousness, and the cosmos.
The term Dami refers to the visionary and transformative figures that appear during Ayahuasca rituals, primarily in the Amazon. These figures represent the initial stage of the spiritual encounter with the vine’s spirit, marking a threshold between different states of being. The artist uses this term to evoke a similar space of transformation and altered perception, drawing from their own experiences with cognitive trance and other spiritual practices. Through these works, SMITH explores themes of transformation, disidentification, and the erasure of boundaries between species, genders, and worlds.
Imago seeks to convey the urgency of moving beyond human-centered perspectives, inviting a more fluid and interconnected experience of reality. Filmed using a thermal camera in the California desert, the project attempts to draw us into a vortex: we follow the artist’s journey toward disappearance, immersed in an overwhelming excess of light.
At its core, Imago reflects Smith's use of light as an artistic medium to expand the realm of consciousness beyond sensory perceptions. He sought a way to see through a mountain, stretch himself to the horizon, sink into the earth, touch the sky, witness beings from birth to death in a single, unified form, discover the invisible relationships between things, give form to the cause and effect of phenomena, pass through surfaces, and enter the diaphanous world of love.
INFORMATION
Image credits: Josée Deshaies, Nadège Piton & SMITH
Sound design : Akira Rabelais
Artistic collaboration : Taous R. Dahmani
Production: Noua and Superpartners with the support of Am Art Films, as part of Villa Albertine 2023
Subventions : Institut Français, Bodo2024, etc …
Special thanks: Nadège Piton, TranceScience Research Institute, Mats Salberg, Dan & Marianne from NOUA.
MORE INFORMATION : https://bienal25.bienalfotografiaporto.pt/en/exhibitions/lightseekers
Rencontres d'Arles
Cryptoportiques
07.07 → 05.10.2025
We are excited to present Batia Sutter’s Octahydra, part of the three-year project Out of the Metropolis, now showing at the Rencontres d'Arles 2025 within the theme Disobedient Images, curated by Francesca Marcaccio. The show will be present at the Cryptoportiques from 7 July - 5 October 2025.
Octahydra offers a visceral exploration of the complex relationships between architecture, memory, and human experience. Suter digitally manipulates images of buildings and artifacts drawn from vintage books and magazines, weaving them into a dynamic, large-scale montage that spans the Cryptoportiques—an environment designed for the installation by architect Sami Rintala.
Treading the path of affect theory, Suter probes how and when we are subconsciously moved or triggered, transforming the viewer’s engagement with the photographic object into a visual journey.
The installation operates through the principles of construction and deconstruction, using digital manipulation to explore the tension between the distinctness of the depicted structures and the universality of human architectural experience.
This spatial storytelling highlights the symbolic power of architecture’s visual language, shaping our intellectual archives and modes of thinking. The buildings, often resembling amorphous shapes with façades that evoke faces, trigger a sense of the uncanny, interacting as though animated, revealing a nuanced tension and dissonance.
The pragmatic ingenuity of the modest constructions speak volumes about the resilience of communities, their ability to thrive amidst limitations, and the creative solutions born out of necessity. Conversely, the narrative shifts dramatically when considering the imposing grandeur of high culture monuments and temples. The allure of grandeur often comes with a sense of power, authority and control, sometimes bordering on the imposition of a singular narrative or ideology.
In sharp contrast, another screen displays a kinetic mosaic of food containers, a plastic prototype that serves as a metaphor for a living, evolving culture of continuous shaping and construction, reflecting a deeply human characteristic.
It serves as a vessel for, and is shaped by, the human experience on both a micro and macro level, encouraging us to consider the world around us, the attitude of structures we create, inhabit, and interact with, and how these constructs shape our place in the world.
INFORMATION
Exhibition design: Sami Rintala.
Exhibition produced by the Rencontres d’Arles.
With support from Meyer Louis-Dreyfus Fund and Pro Helvetia Swiss Arts Council.
MORE INFORMATION : https://www.rencontres-arles.com/en/expositions/view/1618/batia-suter
