This public sculpture born from an invitation of the National Press Museum, Porto , Portugal
SustainableTurism
Every year the National Press Museum promote the PortoCartoon-World Festival that aims to feature the best cartoon authors. In 2017 the challenge was to create a cartoon under the main theme TURISM. The Belgian artist Luc Vernimmen was the winner of this year and I was invited to conceive a sculpture in honor of the winning work.
First we decided that it will be perfect to place the sculpture near a turistic spot once that Porto has been flooded with visitors from all over the world, so I choose to connect the intervention near the Clerigo's Tower with the intent to create a dialogue with the surrounding, promoting curious and specific dynamics between the viewer and the passers-by.
First we decided that it will be perfect to place the sculpture near a turistic spot once that Porto has been flooded with visitors from all over the world, so I choose to connect the intervention near the Clerigo's Tower with the intent to create a dialogue with the surrounding, promoting curious and specific dynamics between the viewer and the passers-by.
As an urban intervention, the insertion in this space should obey a moderate scale, since this place is, nowadays, an UNESCO heritage. Thus, i should conceive a piece that doesn't interfere with the monument view but simultaneously I want to "communicate" with the pedestrian around bringing them to the "scene": in an antagonistic way of dialogue, the sculpture's characters tend to ignore the monument, creating the parallelism with the cartoon characters from Vernimmen.
Its also curious this strategic placement and the scale game, because the people around in the street easily seems to mix with the amount of characters without even notice the slender sculpture in the upper garden. All iron silhouettes intends to grasp a stereotype that ironically -with the exception of two children in the edge- ignore the Tower, tending to focus just on "the lives of others".
This cartoon and consequent public intervention, can be perceived as a warning sign of the social problem of our age inside our humanity development.
Its also curious this strategic placement and the scale game, because the people around in the street easily seems to mix with the amount of characters without even notice the slender sculpture in the upper garden. All iron silhouettes intends to grasp a stereotype that ironically -with the exception of two children in the edge- ignore the Tower, tending to focus just on "the lives of others".
This cartoon and consequent public intervention, can be perceived as a warning sign of the social problem of our age inside our humanity development.
Luc Vernimmen was the winner of the 2017 PortoCartoon-World Festival Grand Prix,
organized by the National Press Museum.
The winner cartoon is entitled Sustainable Tourism.
organized by the National Press Museum.
The winner cartoon is entitled Sustainable Tourism.
