Sofia Borges | Inside the Studio

Sofia Borges is a conceptual artist who has used the photographic medium for over a decade to study philosophical notions on the relationship between matter and meaning. She divides her non-linear research routine between three settings: a home located in a nature reserve, a studio in downtown São Paulo and her old home in the same city. In each of these locations the artist accumulates images captured in prehistoric caves around the world and in museum collections museum, as well as documentation of previously staged performances. Using collage, performance, fire, and layers of pigments, Borges creates images that are so strange that they seem unreal and are often misunderstood as images that have been designed or manipulated using software. Nothing could be further from Borges' work than this false perception. The radically odd aesthetic of her "traditional photographs" comes from the fact that she builds complex photographic scenarios that are either born from something that exists or from something that is constructed and then photographed.

Disconcertingly unfamiliar and powerfully unrelated, her works are consistently unified by her strong and recognisable aesthetic language. The artist keeps presenting us with every time-specific and unsolvable mystery that she encounters in her research. Throughout the complexity of the relations found amongst the works, the mere act of representation arises from something the artist defines as “abstract-figuration” in photography. Borges handles her photographs in the same way as a sculpture handles clay, moulding, stretching and compressing her medium.

Her three work spaces are filled with photographs, rocks, amulets, rare objects, drawings, and endless pigments. The foremost question is, how is a physical space necessary for an artist who works with photography? For Borges, photography is the least essential aspect when discussing her work. The three studios/houses are really spaces in which she channels and addresses the philosophical debates that she encounters throughout her process of studying places and their untold stories. After seven years of extensive research, photographing and researching the boundaries between mimesis and matter within the context of cultural representation, her practice reached new frontiers by mixing photography with performance and collage, inspired by mythology, metaphysics and alchemical fire.

I’m interested in images that are completely readable in terms of form (you can recognize what is) but that at the same

time are corrupted in terms of  “what does it mean”. I believe that to be the condition of existence itself and

that language arises only from the ability of perceive meaning in terms of difference, not unity.

– Sofia Borges

The surroundings and their context are crucial for the artist. For Borges, it is inconceivable that artistic expression should not be connected with synesthetic awareness. Sound, smell, and textures are part of her daily interests and directly affect the conception of her images. These interconnections make the studio an extension of the artist herself – her studio is intrinsically connected to her work.

Sofia Borges is a visual artist who received her BA in Visual Arts from the Universidade de São Paulo in 2008, receiving on this year five art awards for her artistic research and production. From 2009 to 2011 Borges presented seven solo shows in Brazil, was selected by Rumos Itaú Cultural, was highlighted by the Bolsa Iberê Camargo, won the Premio Porto Seguro de Fotografia, was nominated to the Foam Paul Huf Award 2010 and in 2011 her work featured the Modern Art Museum of São Paulo. In 2012 Sofia was the youngest artist invited to the 30th São Paulo Biennial. In 2013, she was nominated to the BES Photo Award, once again to the Foam Paul Huf Award, was granted with the acquisition prize of Centro Cultural São Paulo, and also presented solo shows in Mexico City, Madrid, Paris, Lisbon and São Paulo, and featured works in Rio de Janeiro, Denver and Oslo. In 2014 the artist was for the third time the Brazilian nomination to the dutch Foam Award and presented her works in London, Los Angeles, Lyon, São Paulo, Doha, and Beijing. In 2015, besides solo show in Paris and group shows in Brazil, France and Canada, Sofia developed the No Sound, her first experimental project as curator and since then she has been engaged in developing her research about image in collaboration with writers, philosophers, musicians, and other artists, transforming her exhibitions even more in spaces of investigation. In 2016 Borges presented solo exhibitions in Vienna and Amsterdam and won the British First Book Award with her autoral project The Swamp, inspired by her exploration of the prehistoric caves in the South of France, the book was launched together with a solo show at PhotoLondon 2016. In 2017 presented a solo show in Athens and was granted with the Bolsa ZUM from Instituto Moreira Salles with her research about the tragedy. In 2018 Borges is presented her work at Being: The New Photography exhibition at MoMA and is engaged as curator at the 33rd São Paulo Biennial.