Inês Neto dos Santos
with Inês Costa
‘… the pieces that I’m showing talk about possibilities of care and multiplying nourishment, and are almost in an infinite cycle.’
Listen to full interview here:
My name is Inês Neto dos Santos and I am a multidisciplinary artist. My work and my practice move between performance, installation and social sculpture. I’m interested in investigating the socio-political dimensions of what we eat and how it arrives on our plates. My work often involves creating contexts and frameworks through which we can explore collaboration, generosity, care and togetherness.
In recent years I have delved deeply into the practical and metaphorical dimensions of fermentation as a gateway into thinking about our multispecies existence and our relationships to our surroundings. My work often happens in participatory formats, like workshops or moment for knowledge exchange. I often also teach around these topics as well.
What are you showing in The London Open 2022?
I am showing a body of work that draws from work that I’ve been developing around fermentation and fermenting as a metaphor for ideas of community and collaboration. They have come out of the restriction of lockdown, of not being able to gather and be together with other people in a space, in knowledge exchange formats that are so familiar to me. This led me to create work that involves textile and also creating dyes for textiles through plants, often through a process of fermentation.
A big part of the work draws from stories that I have been researching around traveling ferments. I have been fascinated by stories of migrants or travellers who, at varying points of history, until very recently, have travelled with fermented cultures, starter cultures, for breads, yoghurt or cheese. This starter was essentially in their pockets or in their luggage as they were not able to travel with much. It’s about choosing to travel with something that contains an enormous amount of history, of personal identity, a connection to place, such as a sourdough starter that’s been spread on cloth and left to dry. It can be folded up and carried in a pocket or in luggage and then be reawakened wherever it ends up. For me it’s quite magical and incredibly resilient way of thinking about what it means to make home, what it means to belong somewhere, but also, how much the idea of borders can be constructed or is very much constructed. And how a cloth that might look dirty to anyone else’s eyes actually contains an enormous amount of information. The pieces that I’m showing draw a lot from these stories and are pieces that talk about possibilities of care and multiplying nourishment, and are almost in an infinite cycle.
As mentioned, your practice is workshop-based and, as COVID-19 hindered the possibility of gathering in person, you brought people together, albeit remotely, through the use of these textile based pieces. Could you tell us a bit more about that?
When faced with not being able to meet in person nor organise events where people gather, I turned to making objects, which is quite new to me. I wanted to make objects that would still be connected to the ephemeral, participatory side of my practice. I started thinking about ways in which I could tie in waste that was coming out of my kitchen or my ability to collect material, mostly plants, from my daily walks, and how to channel that into my work in order to create objects that would be representative of a moment in time. It was a way to think; how can something that is a physical object that can be carried in its same state or in a similar state across spaces, still communicate this idea of communion, of collaboration, of community? Not only in a human sense, but also beyond that.
Works in the exhibition:
FERMEN-TOUR, ongoing
Fermented fruits and vegetables (turmeric, cabbage, carrot, onion, garlic, salt, water, berries, citrus, sugar, honey, herbs), beans grown in situ, plant-dyed textiles, bronze, glass jars
Dimensions variable
Friends Who Ferment, 2022
Collaborative quilt through the hands of Aquela Kombucha, Carmen Facio, Fatima Tarkleman, Jelena Belgrave, Maya Minder, Melanie McIntosh, Petar Sapundjiev, Social Pickle, Thom Eagle, Victoria Manganiello and more
Inês Neto dos Santos (1992, Lisbon, Portugal)
2016 MA Visual Communication, Royal College of Art, London
2013 BA Graphic Design and Communication, London College of Communication
Selected exhibitions and performances: A Spring Gathering, San Mei Gallery, London (2022); The Dinner Table, San Mei Gallery, London (2021); Loop Film Festival, Museum of Catalonia, Barcelona (2021); Portal Tables, Stanley Picker House, London (2021); Nocturnal Creatures, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2021); A Hunted Time, Casa do Capitão, Lisbon (2021); The Invitational, Unit 1 Gallery, London (2021); Porto Design Biennale (2019); Life on Mars, Design Museum, London (2019); Edible Goods: Tender Touches, AMP Gallery, London (2019)
