Linha d’Água

Water is an inseparable element in the history of the Mosteiro de Santa Clara-a-Velha.

It was the advancing waters of the Mondego that slowly and progressively led to its abandonment. Once a refuge, for almost three centuries it was a ruin.

When, at the end of the 20th century, it was decided to recover and requalify this space, with the creation of the Centro de Interpretação do Mosteiro de Santa Clara-a-Velha, fragments of the stonework (decorative and functional) from the old building were arranged and exposed under the new construction.

Among these archaeological finds is a variety of stonework once used to collect and use rainwater, now devoid of functionality, a memory of something that no longer is. By simulating (replicating) its former function for a moment, albeit by pouring not water but paper pulp over it, Rita Gaspar Vieira made visible its shape, its attributes and the scars caused by use and time.

The subsequent movement of the drawing-mould to be placed inside the museum space, and its display there using modern equipment of a similar utilitarian nature, gives the piece added value as a record of the model's characteristics but also, as is always expected in these phenomena of museological recontextualization, as an evocative element of a series of forgotten and alienated materials and procedures that deserve renewed attention and interpretation.

It happens with the mold-drawing in the museum as well as with the piece of stonework on the first floor. The transcription in contexts different from the original sustains, encourages and stimulates the critical and reflective potential of the object presented.

This strangeness is enhanced by the use of paper material, which replicates and magnifies the characteristics of the original model with greater precision and sensitivity.

It is also curious that the procedures and processes used by Rita Gaspar Vieira in Linha d'Água do justice to the duplicity and mimetic potential evoked by the title of this cycle of exhibitions: Espelho.

Andreia Poças
May 2014