Basing in the familiar universe of Alto Minho, Portugal life and death, and the movement between the two, are explored. In balance. In these images the bodies, of things and people, are not forgotten. They find a place where they land to remain, ajar in time.

At night the women came down from the hills in large groups.
They talked about life and the future.
They held hands and advanced.
Further down other were waiting with stalks on their bellies and blood stuck to their legs.
They all dreamed of someone who would not abandon them, who would come to wash their feet.
Who would put them back in the center, with things around them.
They also gave breastfeeding its greatest breast with the naturalness of someone who shares a great secret with the importance of life.
As if they all took communion on Sunday, carried the greatest love and knew a lot about the stars.
For those who saw them from afar, it seemed like a meteorological phenomenon, things in the air that nobody denies, but also nobody understands.
And you could see how they were forever swollen, nervous, with the idea that they might never heal.

Born and raised in Ponte de Lima, lives in Porto. Based on her personal experiences, she has been interested in work about these physical and mental umbilical places. About its mutation, and the relations between people and nature, in a close coexistence. She is interested not in its documentation but in a poetic approach, working between the visible and the occult. Between reality, memory and imagination.

For more information, visit: mariaoliveira.pt
Interview with Maria Oliveira here