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Gentle Place in the Chaos

  • Writer: JÚLIO ALVES STUDIO
    JÚLIO ALVES STUDIO
  • Jan 6, 2023
  • 3 min read

Updated: Feb 13, 2024





The installation "Gentle Place in the Chaos" was first presented at the Palace of Egypt in 2016 in the exhibition "Vivificatur and evokes the creation myth. The origin of this work dates back to 2011 when the first ideas on this theme were rehearsed. Before science proposed the Big Bang theory as the moment when the universe began its expansion, there were other theories that were based not on scientific possibilities but on complex histories that organized knowledge to give a plausible explanation how everything wascreated. Any civilization would have its explanation and usually the contours of its history always included the intervention of a divine force that produced a definitive and functional universe whose nature always served human purposes. Mythology presents creation as a simplified process in which a powerful force would be able to create something new in a way that human reason would be able to understand, the result would be a world in which man could find everything he needed. However in these allegories there is always the idea that the world must be shared and human behavior must take into account that nothing is definitive. The resources available do not really belong to him, so nature must be respected and its forces venerated. Divine forces mingle with the forces of nature, and without this link between heaven and earth, the balance can be broken and thus endanger human existence. The feeling that the universe was purposely created for man is very comforting as it removes the possibility of containing dangers that he cannot deal with. Creation seen by ancient civilizations is the way chaos has become a "nice" man-made place. The fascination about the creation of the universe emerges from the fact that it is impossible for science to fully shed light on how in reality everything began, and even the boldest theories only cast hypotheses that can probably never be tested. Any explanation points to a time impossible to visit and so the mystery will always be indelibly present in any theory. The plasticity of the universe is the great cosmic engine that, because it is absolutely comprehensive, can transform everything that exists. Looking at the palm of our hand we may be seeing the same basic elements that once were part of planets and stars on the other side of the universe. Seen in this way the human body itself goes back to the beginning of time because the atoms that constitute it, like almost all matter, were created millions of years ago, what we see now is the result of the action of this cosmic matrix that in its history of grouping elements produced what we are. Light arises as the link between heaven and earth, the divine and the human. It crosses space and time to reach the smallest detail of reality. Creation is represented by the contrast between the fluid form of nature and the rigidity of its component structures. What goes on inside the atoms seems to be a replica of the star systems, the infinitely small resembles the infinitely large as if there were a single rule that runs through all of creation. Reality as we see it now is not just a static perspective in time, it is the gateway to infinity in the only way we can see it.

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