Tempo Abotoado

How do you remember a moment?

Not only the facts of it but the small details, the feeling, the light, the sound of someone's footsteps fading. We live the same instant but each of us remembers only a fragment: one person remembers the sky, another the street, another the man crossing with his cane. The rest disappears. Memory is not a record. It is an edit. Tempo Abotoado was born from this fascination.

The title meaning 'Buttoned Time' in Portuguese, from abotoar, to button up transmits containment, care, and stillness. I wanted to see what happens when I look at a chosen moment through something as ordinary as a button. By holding a button to the camera lens, four holes become four perspectives, fragments coexisting in one frame.

The series captures everyday scenes in Lisbon and the ordinary reveals its multiplicity. Every frame is an invitation to ask: which fragment would you remember?

In 2016, Tempo Abotoado was selected for the contemporary art festival Paratissima Lisboa, where it won first prize in the ParaPhoto category, and was later exhibited at Paratissima Torino.

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photography • fujifilm finepix • series of 12 images • 2015-2016