LANDART FESTIVAL
Drawing
Imagine a drawing of an archetypal house, just the lines defining the four corners and a pitched roof. Now, imagine that the drawing is on a 1:1 scale, made three-dimensional and placed on a piece of ground. Placed by a giant hand, to be more precise, by the hand of a giant child, who sinks it slightly into the ground, amongst the undergrowth and pine trees, as a kind of abandoned toy. But a very serious toy for our scale, made of pine beams treated in oil to make them weather-resistant and iron trusses. And we are turned into Lilliputian creatures perfectly adapted to the scale of that gigantic leaning toy by the playful and earthly gesture of any reader of Voltaire’s Micromegaswho might have placed it there.
The work presented by António Bolota refers to a manor house that might have once existed in the locality. This is where the project takes off. He wanted to recall a presence on the basis of its absence. The work process will only finish when the present construction falls apart during the time it remains standing on the spot. The sculpture, untitled, consists of a wooden structure made of sawn pine planks treated with burnt oil. It is erected on a small hillside that has thickets (of bramble bushes and gorse) and pine trees. Apart from having an octagonal base, the structure follows the downward slope of the land, emerging irregularly at the various points of support. These supports will be made of wood that are dug into the ground because the house has no specific foundations. The natural surroundings will be duly protected while the structure is being built. The site (locality) on which the structure was built should be characterised by its ample size that allows it to make a visual thread along the landscape although it is sheltered in a wooded area.
