“An Atlas, geographically speaking, is a book composed by maps that can be easily handled. Poets and artists have frequently used the same process, but discarding the practical meaning of the object: Lewis Carroll and his empty map, Arthur Rimbaud and his Atlas cut in pieces, Marcel Broodthaers and his tiny and ironic Atlas. Not forgetting the most common way – although not the least romantic – of collecting postcards to recreate the most remote journeys in a simple coffee table…or game table.”

“And if the map was the unknown or calculated result of our intimate displacements? The map of our derivations: instinctual or conceptual, visual or body, sentimental or political? Or the map of our autobiography spatially organized and side by side with our body movements?”

Georges Didi-Huberman in Atlas - Como llevar el mundo a cuestas? (translated from portuguese – english)

After his exhibition - Drawings Pandora - held in Lisbon at the Geological Museum in July / August 2014, Luís Silveirinha selected from that same assemblage an integrated set of drawings to be shown in a more intimate context at the Alecrim50 Gallery. This selection process is characterized by a surgical look through the work that was exhibited. He focused his gaze on the existing maps on display. By decomposing the previous set these drawings form a new collection, compelling us to see the individual parts of the whole group.

The Maps of Pandora reveal work where one can foresee that particular concern about signal an action. The maps are a group of daily records - instinctual derivations - a restless writing that builds spaces in motion - a support, a stage, and also a reaction to the world’s tragedy.

Luís Silveirinha was born in Campo Maior, Portugal, 1968. Lives and works at Alverca.