‘Photo-Scripts’ is a photographic exhibition with more than a hundred photographs divided into 12 chapters, each of which has a fictional text and one of them has a video. João Miguel Barros presents the exhibition that was on show in Lisbon, at Museu Colecção Berardo, at Navy Yard 1 between 13 April and 2 June. "There is no thematic line" between each chapter, the photographer and lawyer explains. One of the few points in common between the presented works is the use of black and white, "a re-creation of reality that we see every day, a way to recreate what our eyes see", because "colour is a distraction, it is a useless noise," he says.
"The concept of this exhibition can be summed up in in something I often say: 'It's an exhibition to be seen as someone who reads a book of short stories'. That is, the exhibition has more than 100 images – most of them large format – and has 12 chapters, which correspond to 12 different stories. There is no thematic line, there are 12 different themes," explains João Miguel Barros, adding: "Each chapter consists of images and fictional text that I wrote and it is in this relationship between text and image that everything is played". One of the chapters, in addition to the text and image, also includes a video.
This exhibition comes from Museu Colecção Berardo, where João Miguel Barros exhibited 14 chapters in 2018. Two were removed "for space reasons". "The presentation of this exhibition requires some space and needs, above all, autonomous areas so that the photographs and chapters do not mix," the photographer explains. Thus, the chapters "Most Excellent Personae" and "Representation of Love" were removed. "One Direction", "Trees", "Precipice", "Tribute", "Between Gaze and Hallucination", "Night Visions III", "Salgados II", "Spring Tides", "Night Visions I" Empty Theater "," Magic Bridge" and "The Path on the Other Side" remained.
Regarding the exhibition at Museu Colecção Berardo, he recalls: "I was given that space for the exhibition and I looked at it and I was scared, it was a very big space and the responsibility was tremendous." However, the concept for ‘Photo-Scripts’ was born from this space. "I was inspired by the Museu Colecção Berard space for the concept of 'Photo-Scripts'. Once the concept was conceived, it was only a question of replicating it from there," he said.
The oldest chapter, "Trees", was photographed in 2013, while the most recent, "Tribute", was already developed during the planning of the exhibition at Museu Colecção Berardo. "The photos were already taken, with the exception of one of the episodes that, interestingly, came to have more impact, the chapter related to boxing, which was added during the exhibition planning." This chapter tells the story of Emmanuel Danso, the boxer defeated in Macau by a Chinese boxer. João Miguel Barros has been accompanying Danso in a project that has itself become “a long-story”. "I've been involved in this boxing project for over a year, and I still do not consider the project finished," admits the photographer, who says he wants to return to the boxer's home country of Ghana to take more pictures.
Some of the photographs in ‘Photo-Scripts’ have already been seen in "Entre o Olhar e a Alucinação", an exhibition that the photographer showed in 2017 at Creative Macau. "I've always been making a connection on this course. That exhibition at Creative Macau, which was my first solo exhibition, includes some of the photographs in ‘Photo-Scripts’", he says, stressing: "There has always been a thread, I’ve sought to find things from the past to take advantage of what I do in the present".
"COLOUR MIXES UP THE PERCEPTION OF THE CONTENT OF A PHOTOGRAPH"
In relation to the choice of black and white, João Miguel Barros says that it is "obviously a personal aesthetic option", and explains why: "If we are not colour-blind, we see reality in colour, black and white is a re-creation of reality which we see every day, a way of re-creating what our eyes see, it is an additional exercise". "Colour mixes up the perception of the content of a photograph very much," he says, emphasizing: "Colour is a distraction, it is a useless noise".
João Miguel Barros has an obsession in his photography, with the blacks. "I'm looking for a very different black from the normal, I'm looking for the perfect black and the intense white." "The camera is an intermediary between me and any other reality that I want to record," says the photographer, who confesses that he has "no technical concerns". "I am not a slave to the technique, in one of the chapters the photographs are deliberately blurred, I was not at all concerned with making pretty pictures".
Also in the curatorship João Miguel Barros stands out. "I have a project to work together with the art director of Museu Colecção Berardo to make a big photography exhibition in Portugal every year," he says, announcing that there are already plans for a "big exhibition" by Guilherme Ung Vai Meng and Chan Hin Io, both from Macau. "It is an exhibition that will occupy a very generous space of Museu Colecção Berardo, it will have photography, installation, performance. We already have the project completely defined, it will be called ‘(Des) construção da Memória’", the curator shares. The exhibition aims to mark the 20th anniversary of the transition of the Macau administration.
For 2020 an exhibition is scheduled of the Austrian photographer Andreas Bitesnich at Museu Colecção Berardo. In 2021 it will be the turn of Japanese artist Daido Moriyama to exhibit in Lisbon. Both with the curatorship of João Miguel Barros.
As a photographer, the short-term plans are to complete the project of Emmanuel Danso, whose title, as an independent project, is "Blood, Sweat and Tears." After finishing this project the photographer, "is speaking with Albergue to do a mini-exhibition of 'Blood, Sweat and Tears', a final project essay." João Miguel Barros is going back to Ghana to shoot the boxer again: "I want to go back to Ghana to do some photography and some movies, maybe I could do something more developed in terms of video, with the help of a Portuguese professional director."
