Sandra Gonçalves is originally from the city of Rio de Janeiro and has lived in Porto Alegre since 2005. She is a visual artist, professor, and researcher in the field of photography at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. The questions that drive her and inspire her to create are those related to life in its multiple social, cultural, and economic aspects, and to the survival of the planet and its different species. Questions related to finitude are recurrent in her work. In 2000, she held her first solo exhibition at the Palácio do Catete with a photodocumentary work on the carvoarias in the urban center of the city of Rio de Janeiro.
Pandemia e Caos / Pandemia and Chaos
The theme is human isolation due to the fragility of the body and the resulting loss of mobility. Such isolation is perceptible in the aged and fragile bodies of the elderly. However, this isolation and confinement have become present in society during the Covid-19 pandemic, holding everyone hostage to a virus (COVID-19) that has paralyzed and confined millions/billions to their living spaces.
The windows of his homes became his gateway to the world, a world seen through filters of pain. These filters, in the images presented, are provided by X-ray images of bodies exposed upside down (against landscapes), revealing the fragile material of which we are made. With COVID-19, we become passive bodies, terrified by an invisible evil, tied to a window frame. Specters of pain and death lurked in this frame’s every movement.
Escape from fear and chaos became impossible; even in dreams and imaginary journeys, the specter of fear and death became a constant.
