Alma de Serpente

Few things are as loaded with symbolism. Its characteristics have been appropriated and re-appropriated by humanity in the continuous construction of individual and social analogies that justify our status as a superior being. It has become a container of mythologies of joy and well-being, of catastrophe and destruction. In this long and inconstant movement, zigzagging driven by the wandering nature of humans, it has been seen as a messenger of an alternative path, as an unfairly maligned villain in a tragedy to which it is entirely unrelated, or now, as a meta-icon static of everything that was before. It is so intertwined in our culture that it no longer fascinates or scares. The wild, critical, unpredictable spark that demanded fascination drowned in a numbing synthetic comfort; it is enough to follow everyone else, wait in its place, to be given enough to stay as it is until it stops being.

This ambiguous evocation is a reference to the role of heroines, saints, lunatics, philosophers, critical leaders, and the progressive absence of these in a global society numbed by comfort and fear.

Francisco Moura Veiga

Solo Exhibition Alma de Serpente, University Católica, April, Braga, 2023