Kathrin Becker ///

Every cloud has a silver lining. Some aspects on the work by Rui Calçada Bastos

The world, in the work by Rui Calçada Bastos, seems an unstable, changing and unsafe place. In most of his work this mutability relates to aspects of the search for identity description and it seems that not only the unstable world but the endangered individual are conditioning and catalysing each other. A good example of this essential theme is the video-work “The Mirror Suitcase Man” (DVD, 4:3, 4.20 Min.) and the photographic series in four parts (Lambda prints, 110 x 85 cm each) dating from 2004. A central element in this work is the suitcase used as a metaphor for a transitory trip, mobility and dynamics. What is decisive is the fact that the suitcase in the work by Bastos is covered by mirrors on all sides, reflecting broken fragments of the different landscapes, street and urban life situations, carried by the male character, the artist himself. Isolated images of the mirror, which show the views in front of the suitcase, interact in a unique way as strange collages, like the video and the photos of the environments around the suitcase which are clearly visible. This “state” of the landscapes and view of the city, besides the person carrying the suitcase, can only be seen in fragments, in parts and never as a whole.