ABOUT
PAR is Amanda Gatti & Pedro Mendes (Brazil). Since their collaboration began in 2016, the duo has worked together on a variety of projects spanning performance, photography, and experimental cinema, which have been presented in Europe and Latin America.
Amanda’s practice stems mainly from performance in non-conventional spaces and video art, with interest in themes such as displacement, city and identity. She is undertaking a MA in Performing Art and Visual Culture at the Reina Sofía Museum (Spain) and has contributed to various research and pedagogical programs and projects.
Pedro’s practice explores aesthetic and narrative possibilities of repurposed footage. Through his experiments with various mediums, Pedro uses self-referentiality as a tool to delve into themes of identity, the body, and memory. He holds a MA in Filmmaking at the London Film School, United Kingdom.
Their current investigation in expanded cinema from a transdisciplinary perspective can be traced back to several of their past works where they combined different artistic languages to experiment with form and content on themes such as identity, memory and the body. To cite but a few examples:
In 2019, the duo presented their debut live performance, "Live Flesh", which offered a critical reflection on the culture of celebrity and spectacle. Breaking away from the conventional atmosphere of a nightclub, they took over the venue with a provocative surrealist-inspired performance where Pedro stalked and photographing Amanda, who embodied a disfigured persona.
Yellow Cage (2020) is an experimental artwork that blends elements of Early Cinema and contemporary video art. Drawing inspiration from the emblematic feminist horror tale "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the piece explores themes of feminism and mental health through a series of symbolic imagery.
Vanilla Underground (2021-23) is a collaborative work written by both artists and directed by Pedro that explores the complex and ambiguous nature of human sexuality, and how pleasure and pain can coexist in the same experience. The project has two distinct versions: one that presents a more traditional narrative, and another that mixes the original footage with archival material to create a highly stylized and experimental piece.
Their ongoing collaborative research and practice is driven by a shared interest in experimenting with novel combinations of artistic languages. As they continue to develop their work, the duo remains committed to use their transdisciplinary experimentations to push aesthetic boundaries and create artworks that engage with the complex social and cultural issues of their time.
WORKS
AFTER MYSELF (2023)
film essay
In "La Plasti Ciudad del Cuerpo" the artist Amanda Gatti activates one of the external spaces of the Antonio Pérez Foundation (Spain) with the idea of "dressing the city", in a notion of inhabiting this place as a body-installation.By incorporating objects/materials collected from the streets into the body, a functional displacement of these objects is produced, which, sometimes added together, establishes an excess, a visual accumulation characteristic of the urban environment. It is about exploring the possibilities of using these leftovers (those that we discard and depreciate), producing and evoking architectural figures.
VANILLA UNDERGROUND (2021)
16mm short film
Father and daughter live a continent away from each other. Amanda is a performance artist and currently lives in Spain. Mauro is a civil engineer and has lived in Brazil all his life. Since she left Brazil, more than 3 years ago, Amanda has been talking to her father through spontaneous video calls, but there's a catch: he is always working. Mauro works from Monday to Monday. However, work and different time zones don't prevent them from talking - in a way, that's the way they maintain their bond.
YELLOW CAGE (2020)
experimental cinema
A live performance created and executed by the artistic duo Amanda Gatti and Pedro Mendes where the latter perfomed by moving and photographing while blinded by a mask. An excercise in voyeurism and sensoriality inspired by Surrealist imagery that aimed to both shed a critical light and provoke a rupture on the typical behaviour found in the enviroment of a nightclub - the place were the performance happened.
CARNE VIVA / LIVE FLESH (2019)
site-specific performance
A live performance created and executed by the artistic duo Amanda Gatti and Pedro Mendes where the latter perfomed by moving and photographing while blinded by a mask. An excercise in voyeurism and sensoriality inspired by Surrealist imagery that aimed to both shed a critical light and provoke a rupture on the typical behaviour found in the enviroment of a nightclub - the place were the performance happened.
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