Tiago Casanova (Madeira, Portugal, 1988) studied architecture at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto (FAUP) in 2006. He has been collaborating with CCRE since 2007, and organized the first and second cycle of “A Fotografia na Arquitectura” [“Photography in Architecture”] in 2008 and 2009, and the FAUP Architectural Photography Award in 2009. In 2012 he took part in the European Borderlines International Project and has won the Bes Revelação Award, and an Honorable Mention at Novos Talentos Fnac Fotografia.
“It is now 09:06 of November 9, 2011, and I am onboard the flight TP 1573 to Madeira Island. (…) I am on my way home, to Madeira Island, and I feel nervous as if it was an unknown place. But I will meet a new Madeira, or at least with different eyes and interests, trying to find new, different and transformed places. The airplane begins to descend. Madeira is down there. From far we can understand the feeling that the fifteenth century discoverers had when they saw Madeira (= Wood) for the first time, and from there we can easily guess the origin of the name. An intense tropical vegetation fills and covers the island of green, but I cannot help but noticing the various urban clusters, scattered houses, roads and highways and the megalomaniac construction of the new airport. The constructed confronts the natural on a dual mode. Large scars are open, but the consummation of the act makes the built elements part of the landscape. This new landscape causes both fascination and disbelief and it is as beautiful as ugly.”
09/11/11 (1st Day – Excerpt from Travel Diary) – Tiago Casanova
The Hybrid Landscape Series intend to guide the spectator on a trip around Madeira Island (Portugal), through a fictional route that highlights relationships and confrontations between the various elements that compose this territory. A confrontation between The Wild and Transformation, resulting into a hybrid being Nature-Construction.
From Hybridity I am interested about this cross-species process, which at first sight we cannot even define what species they are, resulting in an even more enigmatic non-human being that inhabits the contemporary territory, that is sterile and causes discomfort for not fitting into any type or pattern. From Nature we cannot even assess very well the degree of “naturalness”, because the human presence has made its influence even it the wildest of the territories.
I am interested about absorbing imagetically this transgenesis, since the concept of ‘Natural’ was the first to inhabit this territory, remembering that in the act of discovery in the fifteenth century the island was baptized with the name of ‘Madeira’ (= Wood), necessarily connoted with the wild natural state in which the island was found.
This series arises from the Project Madeira – European Borderlines, and is my first draft and exploration of the territory within the proposed work, building a travelogue through text and instant photography. A very personal contact that shows a relationship with the place, with the history and its politics. An intimate narrative construction enhanced by the instantaneity of the image that drive us into a diaristic process.
To view more of Tiago’s work, please visit his website.