We are first faced with this question: ¿A Terra ainda é redonda? (Is the Earth still round?). We hop in and follow the journey, watching with curiosity and interest. Hoping to see it answered during Cristina Ataíde’s first solo exhibition at Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea (MNAC) – Museu do Chiado.

With David Barro as curator, this exhibition proposal puts in evidence the artist’s body of work and, either through works specifically developed for this exhibition or through others re-adapted to the venue, we are plunged into Cristina Ataíde’s world, in spite of the fact that this is not a retrospective exhibition.

Whilst I drifted off – and lost myself – in Cristina Ataíde’s work presented at MNAC’s Sala dos Fornos, Philippe Descola, who was recently in Lisbon, came to mind. Through a landscape anthropology[1], Descola theorises about new ways of perceiving the world, in which everything can and should be questioned, in which everything is put forward to be reconsidered. It challenges us to go further. It takes nature as a continuum: a social extension integrating rather than separating us. It extends and enlarges the field of human relations into a new world composition, intimately related to nature as part of the same system – the merging of human and non-human. It reflects on ecology – as Ataíde does so deeply in her work – and warns us of new ways of making the world, of compounding worlds, grounded in ways of perceiving, updating, detecting and analysing the attributes of the environment, and the relationships it allows us to create.

Deep down, I cannot help but think that these relational aspects between human and non-human, between culture and environment, are the foundation and mirror of Cristina Ataíde’s artistic endeavour and of what she is proposing to us with this exhibition – questioning the Earth we inhabit and the relationships we establish with it.

Nature is the focal point of her output. She works in and with it, incorporating and embedding it in her creative process. She assumes it as a creative agent. This is particularly obvious in Com o Vento #1 (2022), in which natural process dictates the outcome, as well as in La couleur du jour (2013/2023) and even in the series Esculturas do mar (2023). By exploring the nature-landscape and its four elements, she expresses her concerns with ecology, anchoring herself in her extensive journeys and paths taken, ascribing to place-territory a pivotal role in her artistic practice – for instance, the emotional geography mapped out on one of the exhibition walls in the series Pedras do Mundo (2023), a far-reaching poetic charting of memories from the places she has been to.

Her work prioritises shapes and content, finding an answer in nature, collecting natural elements from her travels, with her keen eye for detail reflected in her works and exhibitions, with the body as a nexus – a fusion. Time and space acquire dimension and meaning at this crossroads, conjuring up possibilities and providing an escape from the materiality of the elements collected, now joined together in a single time and space reminiscent of the permanent change and transformation processes, as well as their rhythms, cycles and even absences. This pairing is clear in the tension surrounding Pinus pinaster(2023) – a suspended log facing the old ovens, allowing us to ponder our relationship with the world – and the circle as a shape and symbol that punctuates several parts of the exhibition.

What is underneath all of this – Under all of This? In ¿A Terra ainda é redonda?, Cristina Ataíde invites us to take part in a performative and spiritual journey to the Earth’s depths and brings to mind the account she gave to Cláudia Almeida, in Filhos da Nação[2], of her experience in an Ethiopian volcano. The lava’s crust and blackness are foretold by Polaridades solúveis #1 (2016). A careful inspection reveals the same intense red – a trademark of Ataíde’s work -, reflecting from the centre core of the room. The crack in this layer, described by Cristina, is filled by Pedra parideira (1998). It offers a glimpse into the bowels of an earth assumingly feminine and reproductive – a world-creator. We are compelled to be part of it, to step inside an endless red interior where everything fits – is this interior a new world? The journey climaxes in this living interior (Sem Título 2023A, 2023), in continuous transformation. It spins us, surrounds us, embraces us and calls us to a contemplation beyond the aesthetic experience. An interior open to dreams – is this interior a heaven? -, beyond its limits.

Nothing in this exhibition is unfamiliar to the artistic language that Cristina Ataíde has accustomed us to over more than 30 years of experience working in different media. And yet she constantly amazes us with her ongoing questioning, from a continuous development perspective that generates new meaning and new readings. The poetry of memory always makes it possible to shape new worlds. Worlds that make the invisible visible. They give it body, matter, space, presence and a new consciousness.

Like Descola, Cristina Ataíde pushes the boundaries. She challenges us, questioning our existence. In a continuous becoming that drains us of certainties so that we can conceive and allow ourselves to (compose) new worlds: ¿A Terra ainda é redonda? Apart from its shape, Cristina Ataíde envisions and forms this Earth as part of a communal system, in permanent transformation, under the feminine sign.

¿A Terra ainda é redonda? is on view until September 17, 2023, at Sala dos Fornos of MNAC – Museu do Chiado.

[1] Descola, Philippe (2001). Anthropolgie de la nature: Leçon inaugurale prononcée le jeudi 29 mars 2001. Paris: Collège de France.

[2] Filhos da Nação TV Show. Season 7: Episode 4, of February 8, 2020 (RTP).