projects - Sharjah Art Foundation

Sifting through traces of the past, Brazilian visual artist Aline Motta seeks to reveal the constant cycles of renewal and transmutation that have occurred throughout her family’s history.

Water is a Time Machine (2023)

Aline Motta
Water is a Time Machine
2023
Video
31 minutes 16 seconds (looped) Credits: Aline Motta, Caio Rosa, Daniel Cabrel and Lucas Magalhães (camera
operators), Flavio Muniz (camera assistant), Francisco ‘Cochi’ Guimarães (drone operator), Felipe Macedo (additional drone operator), Luther Modesto (G&E), Daniel Cabrel (projection), Juliana Bento (projection assistant), Caio Rosa and Giulia Maria Reis (production coordinators), Aline Motta and Ana Julia Travia (editing), Diran Hipólito (colour grading), Marina Quintanilha (motion graphics), Thais Suguiyama (motion graphics assistant), Aline Motta, Jessica Gaspar and Spirito Santo (soundtrack), Pedro Santiago (music production and sound mixing), Spirito Santo and Caio Rosa (musicians), Jessica Gaspar and Spirito Santo (singers), and Aline Motta and Mariana Silva (performers) Commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation Courtesy of the artist

Overview

Sifting through traces of the past, Brazilian visual artist Aline Motta seeks to reveal the constant cycles of renewal and transmutation that have occurred throughout her family’s history. The multi-layered project Water is a Time Machine (2023) dwells on uncanny parallels between the artist’s late mother’s personal paraphernalia and Brazilian author Machado de Assis’ short story, Father against Mother. Threading archival material and new footage with spoken poetry, the work structurally initiates a two-way dialogue between memoir and historical record as it attests to racial oppression, vulnerability and familial relations. Accompanying the work is a lecture performance in the courtyard of Bait Obaid Al Shamsi, which uses the facade of the heritage building as a backdrop.