Sandra Rocha
Da Calma fez-se o vento

Curated by João Pinharanda, Sandra Rocha’s most recent project stems from an encounter between still and moving images, mostly made in the Azores, and readings that accompany her research: Ovid, Gaston Bachelard, Emmanuel Coccia, and Jean-Christophe Bailly.

In continuity with her previous series, in Da calma fez-se o vento Sandra Rocha places the human figure in its natural environment. However, in this new composition, the artist insists on the element of water: a continuous flow of energy that strongly incorporates the idea of perpetual movement advocated by Heraclitus. Sumptuous water scenes symbolise the beginning of a new natural cycle, a form of infinity that touches transcendence and sacredness. It is in this harmonious and ritualised environment where humans, animals, plants, and minerals coexist that Sandra Rocha crafts a poetic narrative that annuls the course of time and offers us an eternal form of a new beginning.

Sandra Rocha (Azores, 1974) is a graduate from UA – University of the Azores and attended the photography course at Ar.Co – Centro de Arte & Comunicação Visual, in Lisbon. In 2003, she co-founded Kameraphoto (2003-2012), the first photographer collective in Portugal. In 2008, she joined the “Artistic Creation and Creativity” programme of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and became part of the Azorean gallery Fonseca Macedo. In 2013, she moved to Paris, where she published Le silence des sirènes (Éditions Loco), her first monograph in France, with a text signed by Michel Poivert, in 2016. The following year, she took part in the Regards du Grand Paris (Commande Photographique Nationale), culminating in the publication of La vie immédiate (Éditions Loco), which was selected for the Prix du livre d’auteur, Rencontres d'Arles 2018. In 2020 presented Le moindre souffle at Centre Photographique Île-de-France. In 2022, she was elected to the new Pernod Ricard group's Artist Mentorship Programme, which culminated with the presentation of the project Le saut at the Rencontres d'Arles, in 2022.