Pauliana Valente Pimentel is the artist chosen to integrate one more cycle of the artistic residence “In Residence”, realized in partnership with Porto City Hall. Photographer and visual artist, Pauliana has been creating images since 1999 for magazines, reports and solo exhibitions around the world. Since 2012, she has paid special attention to young people. From Azores to Cape Verde, from Athens to Algarve, the artist has been documenting the stories of a new generation, summarizing, in portraits, the way they look at the world, the territories they move through, the openness and freedom they have in face of what surrounds them.
“I was invited to do an artistic residency at ‘Maus Hábitos’ and this was the starting point to meet young guests of this house, that is so emblematic of the contemporary art scene of Porto. I found myself discovering young people with a seductive look and it was through
Instagram, a tool they use to show themselves and communicate with each other, that I reached them. But it was from their intimacy and the places where they live that I portrayed them, an intimate portrait that goes beyond the pose. I came across self-confident young people, not afraid to show what they are and with vanguard minds, who go beyond gender issues and go beyond the binary, rejecting the stereotypes that society wants to impose on them. For them racial discrimination does not make sense and have a great social, ecological and even political concern. Young people who are not even 26 years old, who live, above all from art, rom art they themselves incorporate and which they began to exteriorize with freedom, here in this incredible space that is ‘Maus Hábitos’.”
Pauliana Valente Pimentel
The initiative integrates the Caravan cycle, a project carried out by the Saco Azul Cultural Association and Maus Hábitos.
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Everything started in 2012, with the invitation and the opportunity to integrate the programming of Guimarães, European Capital of Culture that year. Saco Azul accepted the challenge and worked with 74 artists, including Pauliana Valente Pimentel, who had developed in a residence something similar to what she does today in Porto, seven years later. The object of her gaze has not changed, it is the young people in their teens with all the latent strength but also with doubts and fears. As Robert Frank said that the eyes must learn to hear before they look, this is what Pauliana likes to do when she portrays them, to hear their voices.
“Ask The Kids”, title of this exhibition is the bet on an energetic and risky generation that apparently lost the fear of showing who it is and how it sees the world, which dominates social networks. They are the selfie made people, tastemakers, influencers of our city, working for their communities of followers. Lined with our conviction that Maus Hábitos can only exist with the drive of those who are 20 years old, Pauliana Valente Pimentel portrays the intimate universe of these young people, who shape trends and aspirations of the city of Porto. It reveals, above all, the sensitive side of these youth, only noticeable in their intimacy.
In each portrait we find the confidence and pride of those who want to make it happen and that have full capacity to create and to accomplish. They are young leaders, anonymous to the “general public”, but famous among their peers. The Pauliana’s decision to portray our community of agents for culture arises from the new city furor that is being built and the new programming models for Porto’s cultural and recreational spaces. These are dynamics that renew themselves, reinvent themselves, and where these young people are their own agents and protagonists.
“Ask The Kids” is exactly this, because they know how it’s done. They are definitely the ones we have to support, giving them stage and visibility. We want to grow with these KIDS, it’s with them that we build the new times. Pauliana and Maus Hábitos are just levers for that.
Daniel Pires
Director of Maus Hábitos