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Red has healing powers; we could even talk about a therapy through color. The Red Sea, for example, heals, transforms and grants us a passing ritual. Derek Jarman says that red protects itself, being the most territorial of all the colors: do not dare invade its borders!
Red Sees is an essay on red, a gimmick of the look. This is a project that talks about body domination and power demonstration, reversing the traditional roles that are socially presented to us. Here females are symbolically and physically stronger: they’re ready to face and endure danger; to impose justice. In art demonstrations of power contain an increased sexual charge that determines ways of being and behaving around women and men related to their social context. From the 1970s, female artists began to promote power over their own body which, according to their intentions, would no longer be the subject of a mere voyeurism. However, in this project, metaphorically, we’ll take some steps backward as the representation of the control over the another one’s body comes back, using the imaginary male decapitation to advocate the end of fear, trauma, and inferiority. The women that I represent may relate to the victims of feminicide or even the Antichrist-woman whom Lars von Trier presents to us in his film.
Intoxicated eyes see red. Red sees us.
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Francisca Sousa directs her artistic research towards intimate and social concerns such as violence and the submissive body.
Born in 1992 (Portugal), Francisca Sousa has a Bachelor degree in Painting by the University of Porto and during a study program in London, at Central Saint Martins, she discovered her interest for performance and video art. These new interests lead to a Master degree in Multimedia Arts, at the University of Lisbon, in which she presented the dissertation «Soft Violence – language and metamorphosis».
She most recently did a solo show, Série Sem Título, Sob Suspeita, at Division Zero (Porto); participated in several collective exhibitions (for example at the Valencia’s bienal, Ciutat Vella Oberta 2017, with the screening of her video Pin’s Choreography) and in artistic residencies (Feinprobe Honigsüss 7 in Wittenberg, Germany); and also presented some solo performances (Entretecido, at Serralves Foundation).
