Ataraxia

The Ataraxia series was realised during an artistic residency at Oficinas do Convento in July 2024. It is part of an investigation into body language, censorship and the pluri-semantics of political and religious gestures. My intention with this series is to explore the grammar of duality without arriving at Manichean conclusions, governed solely by an opposition between good and evil, but explicitly exposing oppositions in which the audience must situate itself.

Ataraxia is an absence of interest or response to external stimuli. Questioning this indifference is linked, firstly, to the location of the Breve Mente gallery. Situated in front of a traffic light, where the red light tests the patience of motorists, boredom here is (re)compensated for by sporadically displayed artworks instead of pompous advertisements. Ataraxia is also related to the apathy that is possible in the face of slow political movements, which are then easily ignored or belittled. These, however, have long-term consequences and bring back ‘zombies’ that we thought were extinct. In philosophy, ataraxia can also mean tranquillity. It represents the impassivity of a soul that has become master of itself through the wisdom acquired either by moderation in the pursuit of pleasures, in Epicureanism, or by an accurate appreciation of the value of things, in Stoicism, or by the suspension of judgement, in Scepticism (CNRTL).

Extract from Press release, Exhibition Vergar Ataraxia