Portfolio 2011
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PORTFOLIO edgar melo
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Photo portfolio of Edgar Melo
Transcript of Portfolio 2011
PORTFOLIOedgar melo
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Pride of BilbaoBilbao/Portmouth, Spain&UK28, august, 2009
Dozens of devotees join ship each year in order to find them. A voyage of scientific discovery on an old floating casino composed of brass and neon: the languid passenger ferry that runs between Bilbao and Portsmouth. This route also happens to cross southern Europe’s most important whale breeding grounds.
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It’s an open secret, and the Bilbao journalist and fisherman, Gorka Ocio, is the one spreading the word. We are talking about the old and well-travelled maritime passage between Bilbao and Portsmouth, crossing the Bay of Biscay. A single passenger ferry, Pride of Bilbao, covers the route with a number of sailings each week. So far,
nothing out of the ordinary; however, the crossing passes through one of Europe’s richest breeding grounds for cetaceans and seabirds. Here, then, are possibilities for sightings of the greatest interest.Ocio organises a number of annual expeditions. The group members are both professionals -biologists, environmentalists
and ornithologists- and keen amateurs. The experience of spotting big whales stays with you, they say. Many are repeating, while others are making their first attempt. For the groups of Spanish birders, this is a three-day trip, to England and back again. They spend long watches, of 15 hours, positioned behind their telescopes. However, what truly creates the bond among them is that crucial moment of joy when, finally, whales are spotted.Groups like Gorka’s travel on the old and rather kitsch Pride of Bilbao ferry, chock-
full of British passengers on the way back from their holidays in sunny Spain. These tourists fall victim to the ship’s pitching and rolling, to seasickness and to the stale and decadent atmosphere on board, redolent of an old Las Vegas casino. These passengers are killing time. They are returning home submerged in a strange trance-like state brought on by a combination of boredom, alcohol and surrender to the easy leisure, as well as the rhythm set by life on the ferry.
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Laura VenetaVenice, Italy
In the Italian region of Veneto, an age-old Goliard tradition marks the passage from youth to adulthood with a ritual that draws university studies to a symbolic end. It marks a turning point and the end of an era.
All the tension is concentrated in the 10-14 minutes where the thesis is presented before a panel of lecturers.Afterwards, the student is named a graduate and a ritual, satirisingthe passage to maturity, begins.The tradition developed at Padua University, one of the oldest in Europe(1222). For centuries, graduation was a solemn celebration beforethe whole city, in which a manifesto (il papiro) containing poems or amusing little songs was read in public. In the 18th century, the Goliard –a free-spirited student organisation with a love of gambling, provocationand a poetic way of life (its origins lie with the wandering clerics ofthe Middle Ages) –started to parody this pompous official rite. At the start of the 20th century, the new Goliards used the ancient ceremony of il papiro to shape a modern carnivalesque ritual. The Goliards’ heyday was in the 50s and 60s when the ritual was used throughout the Veneto region and occasionally in Bologna. Althoughthe movement died out in the 70s, the tradition still lives on.The magic of Venice provides the ideal atmosphere for this ritual. Atthe end of January, June, October and December, thesis papers aredelivered. Faculty corridors are abuzz with family, close friends and even pets, who attend the
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proclamation dressed to the nines. A jury asks questions which the future graduate is expected to answer. Photographers, hired for the occasion, document the whole process. The result is announced and the graduate is received with a laurel crown.Canals, squares and bridges become the scene of a sadistic procession of public humiliation, while the crowd sing: “Dottore, dottore, dottore, del buso del cul, va fan cul, va fan cul…” The graduates – naked or cross-dressed - are made to pass through a ‘tunnel’ where they are
mercilessly beaten. Then they have to read out a manifesto: a burlesque biography written in rhyming dialect by their nearest and dearest, which reveals their meanest actions, useless nature and frustrated love affairs. If they make any mistakes while reading, they pay by having a drink. At the same time, everyone present throws sticky foods like flour, eggs or honey at them. When they’ve finished reading, the graduates are given outlandish penitence to fulfil. The ritual comes to a close with everyone eating together.
The mischievous, rebellious and Dionysian spirit of the modern Goliards is alive to this day. The ritual mocks arrogance and provides an ironic take on the pretentiousness of the new graduate who, in reality, knows nothing about life. Every academic award is a lesson in humility for the graduate who’s about to start their working life: a small poetic act of initiation into the adult world.
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Artists, creators and nonconformists have always dreamed and searched for spaces in which to realize their activities in full freedom and independence. Speculation difficult even more the possibility of having an alternative lifestyle. To rent workshops like a house, with out certificate of occupancy, this kind of cubicles is a stoically possibility. The last bohemian space in the cool Barcelona. They are not squatters, they pay. They keep out of all legality. In the Raval district abound these buildings with peculiar and hidden homes where some people develop their dreams of emancipation letting their imagination go and recreating their own self-constructed space. A individual and creative victory against the speculative inertia.
An own hideoutBarcelona, Spain
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