Are You Safe When You Are Dreaming is the title of an installation by João Pedro Vale featuring a lifesaving buoy and a set of tricolour flags. The title, engraved on soap, accentuates the ambiguous emotion suggested by the image of this buoy and its layer of soap – a simultaneously heavy and dissolving substance. As in the confused atmospheres of dreams, the water symbology and the threat of dissolution and death that it carries are featured here, strangely materialised in the heavy and inert buoy – whose rescue function depends of the air it holds –, with, the hanging yellow, black and red flags in the background, embroidered in drawings that illustrate the several resuscitation and rescue procedures used in cases of drowning or shipwreck.

João Pedro Vale has regularly returned to water and marine themes, from dream-like and affectionate experiences, to questioning the ways of life associated with the sea (certain forms of traditional fishing, for example), including the collective experiences connected to popular culture or to the definition of gender or group identities. His heterogeneous work is characterised by a wide variety of media and materials. This journal-like dimension is, however, present as a thread running through his projects, in the optic of subjective comment or as a result from personal reflections about daily issues, and his real or imaginary experiences. On the other hand, his literary or cinematographic interest is evident in the artist’s care with the designation of each of his works, thus signalling his intent of reflecting on the limits of human creativity and communication as it is mediated by convention. This care is also demonstrated in the artworks formal organisation, expressing itself through montages intentionally theatrical and grandiloquent.

AFC

November 2011