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| | Multifunction Apparatus
by Ana Fradique | | Multifunction Apparatus is an object-performance/urban intervention/mobile installation created by the artist Ana Fradique and displayed lately on the streets of the city of Helsinki. The Apparatus is an object with many different functions: lightning bolts and snow protector, hiding place, camouflage, rain coat, skirt, stool, bowl of the giant, tent, egg shell, parabolic antenna, lotus, parachute, shell of Venus, sitting cloud, umbrella, water lily, Las Meninas dress, megaphone, gramophone, and a few more...
Actually, I like it because it is a dynamic-interactive object; it acquires different significances/more functions according to the imagination and wishes of the viewer-user. Walking almost flat on the floor of Aleksanterinkatu or as a flamboyant dress she got inside the tram with, it looks original. She is always inside and often hiding, contemplating or walking/moving, so if you see her around tell her hello for me. In a way it made me recall Yoko's bags, but with a different support structure, many functions, and a different concept behind it. She looks like a walking snow flake, a cloud, a lotus, a fried egg with no yolk, a bellflower, a white UFO and whatever else I can imagine.
Sitting inside her shell in front of the busy Stockmann's main door, under the iconic clock which is a meeting point for dozens of people every day and represents the vibrating pulse of the entire city, Ana watches the people running busy to their meetings and states that Apparatus is a place for a time without hours. Talking about a picture where a policeman looks astonished while she walks on the pedestrian cross, Ana explains why she went out to the street: "The idea was to commit the crime of occupying too much space. It looks like such situation in not contemplated in the codes here". I found the idea funny and original. And she was not jailed.
Ana studied Painting in Lisbon's Fine Arts Academy and is now in Helsinki working on her Masters degree. She is very talented and multitasked, as she works as well in painting or performances as she does with groundbreaking jewellery, for example.
I met Ana some years ago during a reunion of Portuguese Young Creators, most of the people present back then, during that Summer, kept in touch ever since - Ana is in Helsinki, Catia Coias is now in Lisbon and once in a while in London developing her photography projects and arts platform, Joana Bértolo went to Berlin, then came back to Lisbon and is now off having a great time, developing a very interesting arts web platform related with design and social awareness, working with an Argentinean books-cardboard atelier and doing her PhD in Buenos Aires.
David C. is still around Lisbon playing his guitar and stopping for some periods in Brazil, Filipa has been travelling around to Austria, etc. and building her career as a writer and journalist very steadily, Eduardo went to Heidelberg, wrote books and screenplays, studied the German Theatre masters and has permanent plans to travel more, from Zanzibar to Mali to Mexico to Asia (last time I knew something, he wanted to cross Africa by train), David S. went to Edinburgh, Chile and Hawaii just to watch the stars in the sky.
Jorge became a director, screenplay writer and, as he says when introducing himself, a "freelancer of life", Manuel became a maestro and is studying composition in Leipzig, Isabelle moved again to her home-city/dream-city Paris to work on her MPhil in Visual and Digital Arts, Andreia is boosting her comics, Victor is having tremendous success with his choreographies and dance shows both here and abroad, collaborating with dancers all around the world, the last time I knew about Cátia S. she was taking photos in Switzerland and having dinner in Barcelona, David P. went to London for his design MPhil and Inês is now auditioning dancers for her new Summer dance show.
I miss them all very much, and it's always a pleasure to see-share new work or spends time with them.
Introduction by Alexandra Pereira
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