For this project, I wanted to recall the Iberian culture in a non-literal way – not appealing to its costumes, musical traditions and other clichés that one can fall into when trying to describe a group of people. As I clarified before, my first idea was to refer to a single instrument used by both countries – zambomba. However, I managed to find a theme that can be ideally be liked with the peninsula’s culture – the migration culture.
Iberians are constantly migrating ever since the discoveries era started and in parallel directions, especially to South America. But even inside the countries, migration can be seen everywhere: between countries, cities, provinces, communities. Most of the times, migration is attached to the loss or lack of something. The motives can vary between pursuing a job, a better and stable life, studying, and even running away. We can spot these happenings worldwide. For example, in London, between Stockwell and Vauxhall, resides Little Portugal, a large Portuguese community; in Manhattan, New York, there was a prominent Spanish neighbourhood.
But even inside Spain and Portugal, the fluxes of people never end. Many people are forced to leave their hometowns to go to the “bigger cities”. Those are Porto, Lisboa, Madrid and Barcelona, being the last two the most important. In my case, I had to “flee” from Porto and had to choose between Lisbon or Madrid (same distance). I picked Madrid because there were more opportunities there. This migration changed my life forever, and so does to everyone that experiences this. Sometimes I have contradictory thoughts about this theme:
“I’m jealous over those who don’t have to leave their countries and their hometowns to seek a better life because what they need is already exists where they belong.”
It is very frustrating not to work and exercise my art in the countries I belong to because they lack the things I need. However, the necessity of migrating have a good side. The feeling of “coming back” is ten times more potent when experienced under these circumstances. I started to respect the countries that I belong to more when I first left them one by one (First Portugal and then Spain). Also, by leaving the country, we found ourselves in terms of identity and ethnicity, but you also have an opportunity to see yourself being around many others.
In my audiovisual piece, I want to portray my bus trips between Porto, Madrid and Barcelona, under the premise of false memory, allowing me to generalise all the situations that I’ve been submitted. I want to include the feelings and the thoughts that one has on those trips. Those would take more than 10 hours, and, in my case, I had to them overnight – cheaper and faster. With the help of narration, I intend to explore the exhaustion and emotional vulnerability provoked by the same. I would make these trips to either see my family or go back “home”. Home for me is a feeling that mutates constantly, and I have at least three all-around Iberia.