Multimedia exhibition connectinG art, science and personal experience with breast cancer in Azores.
RED SKIES arises from an urgent desire for life, for understanding how to live after a breast cancer diagnosis. Besides my own experience, I am interested in investigating the meanings that the disease bears and how it affects women in different dimensions of their lives.
Cancer is still a difficult secret to be shared, narrated and heard. How to get out of the discourse that oscillates between tragedy and overcoming that is present in most representations? How to find the beauties in this journey of life and death without trivialising grief?
The natural disasters of the Açores (Portugal) are used as imagery and allegory for the unpredictability of journeys that we do not know how they will end. Despite all the efforts of forecasting, a volcano that seems to be dormant, one day breaks out into overwhelming transformations.
An immersive and transformative experience
"Céu Vermelho" creates a narrative that roams the entire Arquipélago’s basement, with 70 minutes of videos displayed across more than 15 different interfaces, including projectors, light tables and televisions. The work of Marina Thomé intertwines scientific images and natural disasters, like the volcanic eruptions of Capelinhos (1957), to question the stigma and trauma associated with breast cancer, depicting the body simultaneously as a territory of destruction and beauty, where ressignificance takes place. With comprehensive research, the exhibition revisits images from RTP Açores and from geographer Raquel Soeiro de Brito, among other archive sources that include north-american medical and oncological images, amplifying the dialogue between historical register and the personal experience of the artist.
Beyond its aesthetic proposal, "Céu Vermelho" distinguishes itself through its profound reflection on art’s role in society and the representation of the feminine body. The installation interrogates the traditional ways of depicting pain and disease, while also defying the conventional take on femininity, proposing new perspectives on the body and nature.
DOCUMENTARY - IN DEVELOPMENT (Portugal/BRAZIL)
RED SKIES is a co-production between Portugal and Brazil in its final development stage. The project took part in the Archè development residency (Portugal) and DokLab Navarra (Spain). The DokLab Navarra consisted of a 2-week immersion for script development and one-a-one mentoring sessions that will run until March 2023, focusing on co-production strategies.
The film has also participated in pitchings at Porto/Post/Doc (2021) and at Ji.hlava Documentary Film Festival - New Visions Forum, where it got the Documentary Association of Europe Award (2022) which includes consultancy sessions with senior experts associated.
At Ji.hlava Film Festival the project participated in the Matchmaking Accelerator industry program and was presented in one-a-one meetings with distributors and film festival programmers.
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Diagnosed with breast cancer, Marina leaves in search of natural disasters in Portugal, the land of her grandmother. While sculpting clay and reinventing her own body, Elena receives her letters.
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In 2018, there were an estimated 2.1 million new diagnoses and 627,000 deaths from breast cancer worldwide. The biggest pandemic of the century could aggravate this picture even more, due to the reduction of routine exams and the postponement of surgeries.
An independent study by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) points out that by 2030 cancer could be responsible for the death of one million people a year. “One of the most worrying aspects is the fact that the mortality rate in Latin America (42% in Brazil and 61% in Bolivia) is practically double that of developed countries (global average of 23%) due to the lack of access to adequate treatments and early diagnosis. According to the Latin American Union Against Women's Cancer (União Latino-americana Contra o Câncer da Mulher - ULACCAM), in Latin America, a woman dies every three minutes from breast cancer and diagnosis is up to five times later than in more developed countries. Among Latin American women, the most common type of cancer is breast cancer.
