Narrativas a Oriente (Narratives from the Orient) was presented in January in Casa Garden’s main gallery, organized jointly by the Orient Foundation, Banco Nacional Ultramarino (BNU) and Instituto Português do Oriente (IPOR). The photography exhibition, curated by João Miguel Barros, featured works by 20 artists with ties to Macau.
“This name, ‘Narrativas a Oriente’, is an implicit play on words. It incorporates ‘narratives’, in the sense of stories told by several artists, and ‘the Orient’, because we are in the Orient, but also hosted by the Orient Foundation”, explains João Miguel Barros, a lawyer by profession, but also a photographer and the curator of this project.
The curator adds that the idea to hold an exhibition with this particular theme all started following the premature closure of the World Press Photo exhibition, a little over a year ago, which used to be held in the same location at Casa Garden.
“When I heard that the World Press Photo was going to be suspended and that it would not be continued in the Orient Foundation’s program, I suggested that a very ambitious project could be carried out, which was to hold a contemporary photography Biennial in Macau, alternating with the ARTFEM – Macau International Biennial.”
João Miguel Barros, who is also the president of the recently created photography association Halftone, notes that there was no formal theme for this exhibition because the idea was to give each artist the freedom to choose their own focus for their project.
“Among the 20 artists, there were both Portuguese and Chinese. Each one had great creative freedom and therefore, the great virtue of this exhibition was its ability to show the diversity of works and also the very different ways of doing photography”.
The 20 local photographers who participated in the exhibition included: Sara Augusto, Mica Costa-Grande, José Drummond, Rusty Fox, Chan Hin Io, Ieong Ho Tong, Cecilia Ho, Alan Ieong, Alice Kok, Tang Kuok Hou, Jason Lei, Gonçalo Lobo Pinheiro, David Lopo, António Mil-Homens, João Palla Martins, Francisco Ricarte, Saskia Salgado, Elói Scarva, Nuno Veloso and Yiima.
“There were very different works, and also very different proposals, because the artists have very different artistic practices. So, I also chose a little bit of this diversity. I wasn’t looking for people who had a very equivalent conceptual practice. I really wanted this diversity to try to show that in Macau there is a wealth of talent,” explains the curator.