The Hide

The Hide was shot over a three-year period (2019-2022), both in the remote mountainous region crossing Northern Portugal and Spain, and in Brussels. The work opens with a fojo do lobo (wolf trap) emerging from darkness, accompanied by dense synthetic sound. A choreography then plays out around varied perspectives of the central but elusive figure of the wolf. This narrative of fragments builds a prism through a process of enveloping and enfolding the circadian rhythms of human and animal. The Jungian concept of ‘the complex’ is employed as a material and conceptual principle in the composition: images of people walking, close-ups of shoes, sound and visual recordings made from a moving vehicle, uninhabited landscapes, a recurring dance performance. The Hide features audio recordings and camera-trap footage from the archive of CIBIO-InBio, Porto. Conversations with biologists there reflect on non-invasive methods of observation, as well as the material and symbolic significance of the wolf in community practices and collective memory. Shepherd Glória Alves Alfonso describes the curative practice of passing water through a gola do lobo (wolfs throat) to rid livestock of disease. Such ancient customs and images of organic life are contrasted with a more-than-human landscape of processed field recordings, resynthesised imaginary insects, and a CG wolfs throat.

Concurrent and long-term conversations take place in the work, with psychoanalyst Catherine Massin, biologists Patrícia Gil and Francisco Álvares, anthropologist Constança Vieira De Andrade, shepherds Glória Alves Alfonso and Sr. Anarolino, dancer Louise Tanoto, and musicians Paul Abbott and Michael Speers.