8_MEDIA ART Ramp - 8_MEDIA ART Ramp
IS A RAMP NEEDED?
Videoinstalation
The approximately six-minute video installation “IS A RAMP NEEDED?” (2024) celebrates the universality and accessibility of the sport, using the recently opened SkatePark in Sines as the setting. Projected on a skateboard ramp, the video art shows young people from Skate Brothers Academy, especially girls, mastering tricks and facing falls with courage. This work highlights cultural diversity and gender equality in urban sport, symbolizing the ramp as a means of physical progress and evolution of thinking about gender equality.
CONCEPT
The universality of sport is revealed in the diversity of modalities that exist in all corners of the world. The space that surrounds us, air, land or sea, is transformed into the will and courage of practicing sport. Everyone can practice, develop and innovate in performance. Given this starting point, positioning sport as universal, accessible, audacious and versatile, the video installation Do I need a ramp? which questions visitors about this truth.
The recent inauguration of the SkatePark in the city of Sines provides the setting for video art demonstrating tricks on wheels. The installation represents the universality and accessibility characteristic of these parks, as well as cultural diversity and, in particular, gender equality. The video art is integrated into the video installation and projected on a skateboard ramp, in a loop, provoking reflection on the theme as the moving images of girls and students from the Skate Brothers Academy are mixed as they perform maneuvers and respective falls.
The young apprentices fearlessly master the ramps, equip themselves with helmets and knee pads and train with courage, they do not give up, even after each fall, they accept that it is necessary to fall in order to advance. The urban sport of Skateboarding shows gender equality in its practice and courage is present in both boys and girls. The choice of the ramp for projection and an integral part of the video installation has a plural meaning - the skate ramp, the physical access ramp and the ramp necessary for the evolution of thinking about gender equality in sport.
The video art «Is a Ramp Needed?» («IARN?») was designed simultaneously with the recording of images at the Skate Park in Sines, with the support of the Skate Brothers Academy in Sines, about the practice of urban sports and image authorization, where boys and girls learn and practice, They talk to each other and motivate each other to practice Skateboarding, without fear. The curiosity of the participants, as the filming took place, stimulated the performance and they mentioned that it was natural to have boys and girls in Skate Parks.
«EPUR?» presents the journey of training, persistence, strength of athletes and courage in the challenge posed to the fragility of the body, female and male. The images of boys and girls allow us to analyze how they both fail and fall, try and shine, practice and smile throughout the practice. In the images there is a presentation, repetition, separation, focus and in the end the union of both genders. Equality refers to nuances and this was represented on a chromatic level with the use of filters, remixing and overlapping of images, shapes and backgrounds, already characteristic of the author's works. They include several visions, distorted, unclear, which accompany 3 soundtracks, all of them in a female voice. There is serenity and continuity on the ramp and it includes contrasts, of sound and color, with the adventure and risk of the practice.
The outdoors, group practice and the diversity of styles in the sport, in the practice of Skateboarding, stimulate physical and mental harmony, combining body and spirit. The written language aims to reach the public that passes by and searches the video art work for a theme in a frame, illustrating it graphically.
ARTIST BIO
Sílvia Venturinha Jermias is a PhD student in Digital Media Art (MAD), University of Algarve - Open University, and a researcher integrated into the Center for Research in Art and Communication (CIAC). She is a teacher, local coordinator of the National Cinema Plan (PNC) and coordinator of the Eco-schools Program at the Sines School Group. Master in Personal and Social Training, graduated in Visual and Technological Education and Specialized in Cognitive, Psychomotor and Behavioral Development Disorders. Develops voluntary work with educational (Tarrafal, Cape Verde), cultural (MAR - Mostra de Artes de Rua, Sines) and civic institutions (Associação Bem Estar Animal, 4 Patas, Sines). She is the coordinator of Atelier Plano B, with introductory workshops on Fine Arts and Medium Digital Art. The beginning of her career in the area of scientific research includes a publication in the annals of the Congress “Human Rights in Education", 2021. (472-476), and as co-author of the article (2023) «Media Digital Art: The Link Between School and Active Citizenship».
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