Natureza Fantasma

Marco Martins

Phantom Nature

2021

Every year since its creation in 2010, Companhia Maior has invited an artist or collective to create a show for the group. In 2020, the devastation caused by the pandemic meant that we were unable to achieve this aim. We came up with a new type of creation, however, an installation based on the childhood images and memories of the performers.

Based on the cast’s family albums, Marco Martins, in collaboration with Fernanda Fragateiro and Gonçalo M. Tavares, created Natureza Fantasma (Phantom Nature), an installation based on the way these records shape memories, fixing certain events in a ghostly light.

As a more or less systematic collection, a photographic archive’s personal and family aspects point to a construction in which time takes on emotional outlines and narratives, beyond a strictly chronological dimension.

Photographs and films, however, are always a way of recording actions and information, possessing an intrinsic materiality and constituting a means of expression that distinguishes them from other discourses found in the personal and family dimension.

The visual representation of this type of event (studio photography, holiday photos and photographs of various other domestic events) always involves the construction of an image representing a narration that we seek to control.

By confronting those images and with the presence of the people involved in Companhia Maior, now forcibly dissolved in the virtual, Natureza Fantasma grabs onto the potential of that virtual aspect, materialising that which is latent in the fictional dimension of all biographies.

Credits

Instalation by Marco Martins, Fernanda Fragateiro e Gonçalo M. tavares

Film Director
Marco Martins

Sculpture and set designer
Fernanda Fragateiro

Text
Gonçalo M. Tavares
Marco Martins

Companhia Maior cast
Angelina Mateus, Carlos Fernandes, Carlos Nery, Catarina Rico, Cristina Gonçalves, Edmundo Sardinha, Elisa Worm, Isabel Simões, João Silvestre, Kimberley Ribeiro, Manuela de Sousa Rama, Maria Helena Falé, Michel, Paula Bárcia

Technical consultant, sound designer and engineer
João Ferro Martins
Digitisation and archive handling
Blues Photography Studio
Sound designer
Rafael Cardoso
Movement directors
Cláudia Nóvoa
Vânia Rovisco
Staging assistant
Rita Quelhas
Manager (Arena)
Marta Delgado Martins
Production assistant
Mafalda Teles
Production
Mariana Brandão

FILM

Director
Marco Martins

With the participation of
Ema Araújo, Érica Santos, João Vasco Bettencourt Vieira, Laura Cepeda, Leonardo Delgado Martins, Manuel Viterbo Brandão Sardo, Melanie Neves, Mia Dewart Melo, Stefan Gomes

Cinematography
Carlos Lopes (Káká)
Lisa Persson
Marco Martins
First assistant camera
Lisa Persson
Second assistant camera
João Porto
Direction assistant
Teresa Mata
Stage manager
Rosa Vale Cardoso
Master electrician
Sérgio Caçoilo
Sound designer
Bernardo Theriaga
Camera production assistant
Tomás Vieira
Costume designer
Isabel Carmona
Costume designer assistant
Mariana Lourenço
Hair and make-up artist
Nani
Make-up assistant Ana Roma
Hair assistant Marisa Marques
Taxidermy Pedro Andrade, MUHNAC
Colourist Mário Gaspar
Film editors
Leonor Teles
Rita Quelhas
Post-production coordinator Catarina Lino
Production assistant
Filipa Falcão
Production manager
Joana Vaz da Silva

ARTWORKS

Director
José Miguel Pinto
Art coordinator
Francisca Marques
Production coordinator
Valentin Neves
Master metal carpenter
Hélder Fernandes
Metal carpenter
Jorge Santos
Production assistants
André Coelho
Carlos Arteiro
Pedro Graça
Project assistant
Ana Maria Trabulo
Audiovisual coordinator
Bruno Lança
Manager from Ecosteel
José Maria Ferreira

ATELIER FERNANDA FRAGATEIRO

Staff
Filipa Alfaro
Filipe MeirelesCo-production
Centro Cultural de Belém
Teatro Viriato
Companhia Maior
Arena Ensemble

Companhia Maior is supported by the Lisbon City Council under RAAML and by the Parish Council of Belém

Support

Artworks
Câmara Municipal de Lisboa/MUDE – Museu do Design e da Moda
CAV – Centro de Artes Visuais
Centro Hospitalar Universitário de Lisboa Central
Cinemateca Portuguesa – Museu do Cinema
Ministério dos Filmes
Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência
Uma Pedra no Sapato

Acknowledgements

António Câmara Manuel
Cláudio Torres
Equipa Peris Costumes
Filipa Reis
João Maria Gusmão
José Luís Borges Coelho
Luís Pavão
Maria José Pinto da Costa
Rafael Barreto

Exhibitions

24 June – 16 July 2021
Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon

14 – 24 October 2021
Teatro Viriato, Viseu