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Magda Delgado

Presented in the exhibition: "The sprouting of pernicious beings and other blessed infestations" 2021.06.11 — 2022.07.25

Presented in the exhibition: "The sprouting of pernicious beings and other blessed infestations"
2021.06.11 — 2022.07.25

Presented in the exhibition: "The sprouting of pernicious beings and other blessed infestations" 
2021.06.11 — 2022.07.25

2021.06.11 — 2022.07.25 
Exhibition Pernicious Beings and other blessed infestations at NO·NO Gallery [Lisbon, PT]

Text (excerpt): RICARDO ESCARDUÇA

"Unsurprisingly, because the insoluble belongs to it, the cultural syncretism of ancient myths about beginnings and ends leaves unresolved the fate of the human body on the day when infinity is revealed. As for the perverted, who do not even reach limbo, it must be said that they are rotten, drowned, burned, devoured, in hellish circles ordered according to the crime committed. As for the virtuous, they will shine in the cosmos, already spirits, freed from their accursed corporeality, or they will remain on earth, still matter, feeding on original monsters. Although following different paths, both traditions—Gnostic and Messianic—aim at the reconciliation of human beings with what is inherent and original to them. The day of the end is prophesied as the day when, allegorically, the human body will even regain its animal appearance.(…)"

2024
Crows (Corvidae) are known for collecting small objects and use tools , so this fact was a precious premise to create this piece, where scraps were widely used. The conception of this sculpture comes from a misanthropic view, placing humans in the role of a plague, instead of accepting their dominance over the animal species. It consists of a scarecrow that frightens humans away in a world where animals fight against extinction. It is also a concealed straitjacket where the spirit of a beast-shaman resides within, conjured by animals, that in turn will possess whoever wears it by stealing their soul. The mask inside shows the image of a face representing the last moment of Humanity of its wearer, and the tunic’s sleeves have no openings for hands, so who dawns it will have instead of arms useless wings, acting as a restraint.

marisabenj.info@gmail.com

Interview

Marisa Benjamim

(im)possible antidote is a site-specific installation by artist Marisa Benjamim that responds to the layered ecological history of Ernst-Thälmann-Park in Berlin. Once the site of a large municipal gasworks (1873–1981), the soil beneath the park still bears the legacy of industrial activity—cyanides, phenols, and tar remain in the ground despite decades of remediation efforts since the gasworks’ closure. This invisible contamination becomes the starting point for Benjamim’s inquiry.
The artist turns to phytoremediation: the capacity of certain plants to absorb, filter, and transform harmful substances in the soil. Through botanical research, field observation, and material experimentation, Benjamim traces how spontaneous and often overlooked plants naturally emerge in the contaminated soil—resilient organisms with the potential to slowly heal damaged land.
In the exhibition, these plants are collected, pressed, and presented in an installation that blurs the line between scientific archive, ritual gesture, and poetic proposition, reflecting the artist’s interest in empirical knowledge, healing, and care. The work invites viewers to consider what it means to care for polluted ground—not through immediate repair, but through attention, time, and the humble agency of plants.
(im)possible antidote is questioning: how can we create an antidote in impossible times? Perhaps by listening to what still grows. The project reframes these plants as silent activists, proposing a regenerative dialogue between ecological memory and embodied hope.

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Página Pessoal

Jorge Leal

Paisagem, 2024, tinta da China e acrílico em spray sobre papel, 70 x 200 cm

Paisagem, 2024, tinta da China e acrílico em spray sobre papel, 70 x 100 cm

E-mail: joao.marques.studio@gmail.com 

Phone number: +351 963720065

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João Marques

We were here, what a misfortune...#1, part of the series that gives it its title, started, like much of my artistic work, from a walk. In 2025 I finished my master's degree in Painting and so I moved studio and stipulated that, as part of my creative process, it was an absolutely necessary condition to walk from home to the studio (about 5 km) every time I went to work so that the walk would be the start of the artistic work (through reflection, projection and the collection of material or motifs for new works or projects). On the inaugural walk towards the studio, wrapped up in various thoughts, I noticed a 0.33cl plastic bottle from the Fastio brand - the name of the brand is decisive - tucked into the hollow of a large ash tree. Ever since I was a child, I've been confused and repulsed by garbage in nature. That's why I've been picking it up for as long as I can remember. This image of the plastic bottle deliberately placed in the groove of the tree when a garbage can is 50m away disturbed me. This disturbance, combined with the name of the brand itself - Fastio - seemed too ironic to be possible. I removed the bottle from the tree, put it away and, irritated, continued walking towards the studio with the bottle in my hand. I then began to draw part of the trunk of the ash tree with charcoal - the material I usually use to depict trees.
 With some irritation, the paper crumpled and, as I gestured with the charcoal, the leaf itself began to acquire a texture similar to that of the tree trunk. The collected water bottle, dirty and with pieces of styrofoam, was painted red acrylic and glued to the drawing in the exact place of the trunk where it had been. The use of red acrylic is intended to refer to human material, artificially created by humans such as acrylic and plastic, which is almost impossible to disappear in nature, as opposed to the charcoal bars, a biodegradable material, used to represent the tree trunk. The choice of materials is decisive in the sense that it highlights and exaggerates the dichotomy between what is created by human ingenuity, which is mostly polluting and harmful to the balance in nature, and what is produced naturally, without harmful consequences and which allows the natural cycle to continue, which human activity interrupts and prevents.