Involuntary Landscapes, a photography exhibition by artist Hugo Teixeira, is being held at Creative Macau on the ground floor of the Macau Cultural Centre (CCM) until Saturday.
Through the exhibits, a statement from the gallery said, Teixeira, who is a linguist by training currently teaching at the University of Macau (UM), attempts to construct a “historical and cultural consciousness” that was lost when his family emigrated from Portugal to California in the 1970s.
The works feature photos of an anonymous family in pre-Carnation Revolution (April 1974) Portugal, which recalls his own family stories’ characters and settings, juxtaposed with landscape photos from Teixeira’s travels in the California chapparal and Portugal’s “montado”, the statement noted.
Chaparral refers to “a shrubland plant community and geographical feature found primarily in California, southern Oregon and the northern portion of the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico”, according to Wikipedia.
Meanwhile, AGFORWARD notes that “montado” is Portugal’s main agroforestry system, which is “characterised by low density trees combined with agriculture and pastoral activities”. The system is known as “dehesa” in Spanish, the main tree component being oaks.
The statement added that Teixeira grew up in San Jose’s Luso-American community and studied photography at the San Jose State University and Lisbon’s Escola Técnica de Imagem e Comunicação. He also has a Master of Fine Arts in Photography and Related Media programme from the Rochester Institute of Technology in the US.
He has received several awards and exhibited work in the US, Europe and Macau.
The gallery is open daily from Monday through Saturday from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. Admission is free.
Photos taken yesterday by Rui Pastorin
