‘I believe that my work wouldn’t even exist without culture. Much in part because of the reference to the place where I was born and the cultural influence that this brought me. Like the materiality I seek, the traces, the questioning, the ancestry, the history, the colors.’
Evna Moura develops an authorial work documenting the Amazonian daily life and her photographic production explores the various technical and conceptual possibilities of handmade pinhole photography and analogue photographic processes, integrated with digital image processing techniques. Prioritising analogue photography and its possible interfaces, creating narratives and dialogues between characters and these places, on the various supports and photographic films.
How did your experience with art begin?
Formally my experience began during art college in 2007, when I started some experience in university salons and in more objective or conceptual studies of the area. But informally, my experience comes from childhood. When my father gave me my first analogue camera and from there I created a connection with photography. After a few years I started to do workshops in a cultural foundation near home, on the outskirts of Belém. I was experimenting with various languages and I believe that there, in that place, my process began. Entering university was a step towards professional formalization, a space to debate and deepen this relationship.
What motivates you to create?
I think the motivation comes partly from a discomfort with certain things and how I can externalize these feelings and work them into the image. And in another part it motivates me a lot to think about identity issues: creations and documentations based on this point.
What is your creative process and how do you find and choose your materials/media?
The process is along the lines of what I mentioned above and as I elaborate the idea better, I realize what kind of technique or material best fits the concept of each thing. I spend some time researching, thinking about the type of materiality, testing. When it comes to objects, I usually prefer to use more organic materials or things I can find at home. When it comes to a certain performativity to the image, I’ll try to think about each element and what it can communicate.
What influence does culture have on your work?
I believe that my work wouldn’t even exist without this influence. Because of the propositions that I have taken on as a motto and what I try to communicate with it. Much in part because of the reference to the place where I was born and the cultural influence that this brought me. Like the materiality I seek, the traces, the questioning, the ancestry, the history, the colours.
What influence does the use of colour have on your artwork?
For me colour is one of the many elements in an attempt to communicate a concept. As well as the negation of it also becomes, depending on what is desired. I usually make use of them, because for me it is very difficult to talk about the Amazon without using colors. The forest has countless natural riches, materialities that most people don’t know about, and a materiality almost never serves only one function. Things can serve as pigments, at the same time they have very characteristic smells that can be used as essences and at the same time can be a remedy. So in a certain way I try to use colours in my work as an attempt to show a little of this plurality of sensations. The day when this is not the goal, I feel free to abstract from it as well.
Could you describe your work in one word?
Wow, difficult. I think “strangeness”. I feel like a stranger trying in different ways the possibilities and the flows that I put myself in and taking with me the experience from which it comes out.
Describe an emerging artist whose work pleases you.
I cite here the work of a much needed woman photographer: Marcela Bonfim. I believe that for a long time, like so many other artistic languages, this was only one more media dominated by men where we, women, were placed as “muses” and objectified in the image only as a reference of beauty and now a moment has come when we have more space and autonomy to speak for ourselves, and show that we are also reference of so many other things.
What is your mission as an artist?
I don’t know, I’m still trying to find out. It’s this search that moves me. I’m still getting to know myself and I believe that as I mature, I will better understand my own work.
Have you participated in artistic residencies,open calls or any online activities such as online artist residencies, online webinars for artists, online screening rooms?
I have participated in a few activities such as presentations, courses, online debates, virtual exhibitions and a very interesting one in particular which was a Mapping video festival created in a virtual island in which we exhibited our works, in my case some images and a video performance. I have been finding very interesting these provocations that the pandemic has caused in the creativity of all of us, despite the shaking of the first months. I think our greatest human quality is adaptation and this has been a great motivator for me.
Can you share your social media to follow you and learn more about your art?
My instagram is @evna.moura and there I share some processes and news.
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