NATIONAL IDENTITY (Príncipe Real)

PORTUGAL | INSTALLATION | NEW CREATION

The piece by João Pedro Rodrigues & João Rui Guerra da Mata can be seen as poetry of the wandering body in urban space. The phantasms and fantasies, the shadows and its dances, the dimension of sacrality and eroticism.

In the middle of the Príncipe Real Garden, iconographic site of LGBT bodies’ roaming, there can be found the subterranean Water Museum/Patriarchal Reservoir. BoCA invited João Pedro Rodrigues & João Rui Guerra da Mata to present the installation titled “Identidade Nacional” [National Identity] in a descent to the depths that re-contextualize the bodies the directors have been filming throughout the years. “Identidade Nacional (Príncipe Real)” assembles film, photography and props from earlier works in a reflection on identities, and both gender and national identities.

The film “The King’s Body” (2013) by João Pedro Rodrigues, commissioned by Guimarães Capital of Culture, looks for an actor by means of a casting to portray the first king of Portugal, D. Afonso Henriques. One of the props idealized by João Rui Guerra da Mata for the film “Morrer como um homem” (2009) by J. P. Rodrigues is the mortuary mask, made of silicone, of his protagonist Tónia (played by Deborah Krystal, iconic figure of transvestism in Portugal). Other photos, of Maria Bakker and Jenny Larrue form the installation. The set of these elements questions every code of conduct, perception and appearance and in that process shatters any idea that is more reductive of identity based on self-expression, just like in others’ judgement based on gender attribution, that is immediately perceived as being associated with a typified behavior.

THE KING’S BODY by João Pedro Rodrigues
Video Projection 32’, HD, color, stereo sound, loop / Portugal, 2013
Subtitled in English

MORTUARY MASK OF TONIA (FERNANDO SANTOS)
Prop from the movie “Dying like a Man” (2009) by João Pedro Rodrigues
Painted latex, natural hair
Performed by Colin H. Arthur e Sarah Pooley (Dream Factory Spain), 2008

MARIA BAKKER (GONÇALO FERREIRA DE ALMEIDA)
Prop from the movie “Dying like a Man” (2009) by João Pedro Rodrigues
Photograph by Luís Silva Campos, 2008 

JENNY LARRUE, GUERREIRA NUBA (JENNY LARRUE)
Prop from the movie “Dying like a Man” (2009) by João Pedro Rodrigues
Photograph by Luís Silva Campos, 2008 

REPLICA OF THE HYPOTHETICAL SWORD OF DOM AFONSO HENRIQUES, FIRST KING OF PORTUGAL
Prop from the movie “Die as a Man” (2009) by João Pedro Rodrigues
Forged by Carlos Nortes and Paulo Correia in Cutlery Lombo do Ferreiro, Caldas da Rainha, 2012