Inês Amado, born in Leiria, Portugal is a London based artist, curator, academic and researcher. Her work spans several media: sculpture, video, site-specific installation, and performance with a particular interest in interdisciplinary, collaboration and participatory projects through a process of dialogue, interaction and exchange. Her main area of research focuses the relationship between doing, empowering, thinking and divulging art; her approach is reflected and interconnected through exhibiting, teaching and curating. Her most recent work focuses on the exile, displacement, temporality, change and transformation, including the investigation of spaces of transit and of transition invoked by memory and storytelling that reveal cross cultural semiotic aspects as well as historical legacies. River Flows a major exhibition in Leiria Portugal in 2015/2016, focussed these aspects.
In 2014 she co-organized, co-curated and participated in the IV BreadMatters – Crossing Boundaries Intersecting The Grain in ARtos Nicosia, Cyprus. BreadMatters is a research program composed of exhibition and debate that questions and focuses on socio-cultural, political, historical and geographical issues around bread and the importance of bread in the history of humankind and which, brings together artists, art historians, writers, musicians, art critics and the public in a program of exhibition and debate.
Inês Amado has a doctorate in Humanities – with a focus on Anthropology and Oral History.
Ines says:
"For me having a discursive and inclusive approach is a basic requirement, together with challenging the allure of the established art market. The art market that relies on hype to promote particular artists, and trusts the so called art experts who advise collectors/buyers whether or not to invest in the current big names. Whilst a great deal of curators are inventing everyday new brands and discourses in order to promote themselves, as the complete package, (replacing the very people that produce the work, - the artist - without which there would be nothing to elaborate/theorise about) in the contemporary art world.
My interests are in Art that connects people; different areas of society that all have something to say and contribute to a piercing Contemporary Art Debate and I would like to emphasise that curators are included, so long as they respect my work, as I theirs, after all, I am an artist-curator! To be in a position of challenging the status quo We are all interdependent and interconnected, to strengthen and underpin that, most of my work relies on connectivity collaboration and participation, whilst focusing the individual, I question the collective."
Dreaming the world in a loaf of bread
To the writer and humanist Jiddu Krishnamurti “Freedom and love go together.
Love is not a reaction. If I love you because you love me, that is mere trade, a
thing to be bought in the market; it is not love.”
Accordingly, in a dream economy you value what you have, you share and
exchange what you produce and the knowledge or expertise you have.
This project will be focussing on the value of bread. By using this simple
foodstuff, I am asking people to value and ponder upon something normally
taken for granted. I will be questioning people from different walks of life…
Bread in its simplicity and nobility, the most basic, the oldest but also the most
revered food, is connected to intrinsic values, rituals and traditions that keep the
deepest roots and the fundamental principles of coexistence and participation.
These are some of the questions I put to myself: What has this bread taken in
order to reach my table? How many hands had to handle it from farmer to miller,
to baker, to seller? How many hours has it has taken for this bread to reach me
from sowing the grain to being baked? What do I associate with the taste of
bread? How do I value my bread? Does my bread taste of love?
Does bread imply sharing? Do I associate anything to bread; situations,
occasions, places? How about memories of bread?
And in approaching people these are the questions I put to them.
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What does bread mean to you?
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In a dream economy/world what would your bread be like?
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In a dream economy what would you be thinking of giving or of sharing in
return for this loaf of bread?
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Have you any memories of bread?
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Could a round loaf reflect our planet?
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