ONE YEAR IN THE PARK

JORGE SARMENTO

11 SET 25 – 23 FEV 26

EXHIBITION

The exhibition is organised by the Serralves Foundation – Park´s Direction, is curated by Jorge Sarmento, and coordinated by Marta Tavares.

one year in the park is an invitation to contemplate time, Nature, and memory through photography. Inspired by the images and texts of the homonymous book, this exhibition quietly unveils the passing of the seasons and the subtle, unpredictable beauty of the Parque de Serralves.

The exhibition journey rests on a duality: on one side, the physical presence of the book — matter, printed light, a permanent record — presented in the form of a Möbius strip, evoking Nature’s continuous cycle and a time without beginning or end. On the other, that which escapes the page and extends through space and time — the essence, the marks, the residues, the reflections, and the multiple perspectives possible on a reality in constant reinvention.

Photography, more than a visual record, is a bridge between the visible and the invisible, between the ephemeral and the timeless. The photographer Jorge Sarmento reveals in each image fragments, nuances, and connections that express Nature in its diversity, singularity, and interdependence. The exhibition is also a tribute to the Park as a living and palimpsestic entity, discreet guardian of memories and purposes, witness to the passage of time.

In one year in the park, we seek to recognize our own transience in the face of Nature’s continuity. As we journey through the book and the exhibition, there remains an invitation to (re)discover the Park, inscribing ourselves also in a greater story — the one that this refuge quietly keeps for eternity.

EXIBITION

This exhibition stems from the book a year in the park. It is about the book, with the book, and beyond the book. It is also an exhibition about the Park. The images come from the book, yet here they acquire new form, new time, and new materiality. Above all, this is an exhibition of the book — as process and as object; as observation, memory, and transformation.

a Year in the park is a record — of time and space, of light and matter, of permanence and transformation. Between analogue and digital, between the act of capturing and the act of releasing, the work is built upon dualities that interconnect without beginning or end.

ALPENDRE

At the entrance, a yellow panel features the introductory texts from the book.

one year in the park is a stage where time unfolds into cycles, revealing the nature of its own subtle and beautiful rhythm. Here, each season is one of the acts of a continuous play, in which the colours, sounds and cadences are transformed, painting ephemeral patterns that would escape our perception were it not for the attentive gaze of those who record them. The photographer is the patient observer who interprets that silent language, capturing moments that tell us the story of the perpetual renewal of life. The flowering of spring, the brilliance of summer, the golden twilight of autumn, the winter pause–each image is a testimony to the passage of time, an invitation to visitors to sense the Park’s deep pulse, if only for a brief moment. More than a physical space, this Park is a living narrative, an archive of intertwining stories, where each tree, shadow and path is replete with the memories of countless beings. In this context, photography is a bridge between the visible and the invisible, the ephemeral and the eternal, the present and the past. It is an act of preservation and sharing, enabling future gazes to connect with what once existed, with the palpitations that are renewed each day. And thus, in this visual record, we may perhaps acknowledge our own transitory condition and, at the same time, recognise the permanence of nature as a greater entity–a silent guide to the existences that surround us and the guardian of our hopes and intentions.

Helena Freitas, park director

We are the Universe building memories. This slice of our present is part of a cosmic timelessness. one year in the park is the result of the interaction between realities–that of a photographer who observes and records nature and that of a Park where corners are home and history to an infinity of living beings. A timeless story that reflects nature as an “entity” that guides existence and assigns purposes. It is uncertain; but perhaps one day, the materiality of this record may evoke the experience, thought and altruism of a collective that has developed mechanisms to connect, feel and dialogue with nature, telling eternity: one day, this existed.

Jorge Sarmento, photographer and anthropologist

CELEIRO E LAGAR

The two main exhibition rooms propose a dialogue between two states of the same object: the book and what transcends it. On one side, the materiality of print; on the other, the abstraction that emerges from it. Here, dichotomies unfold: existence and transgression, reflected light and projected light, permanence and ephemerality.

CELEIRO

In Celeiro, with yellow-painted walls, a Möbius strip presents the entirety of the book — pages connected in sequence, without marked beginning or end, in a continuous suspended loop. As in the book, time unfolds image by image. The strip floats through the space, suspended by nearly invisible threads connected to an orthogonal grid on the ceiling, lifting it to eye level and inviting close attention.

CELEIRO E LAGAR

At the Lagar, the book is revealed in negative.

Printing plates, traces of the printing process, appear outlined by the contours of the final pages. Arranged in CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black), they reveal the fragmentation of the image and suggest what escapes human perception: other colors, other sounds, other forms of presence. On the walls flanking the entrance corridor, printing plates are aligned in multiple repetitions, like a tile panel, alluding to the infinite loop of the industrial printing process – the main force behind the materialization of the book-object.

Within the panel’s seemingly random color pattern lies a hidden code: a sequence from the genetic material of Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly), transcribed through printing inks. This subtly proposes a correspondence between the codes that sustain life and those that structure technology – in both cases, existence emerges from an unseen order that shapes what we call reality.

At the center of the room, the 366 photographs from the book are projected onto a translucent screen. The image passes through the fabric without disintegrating, maintaining its integrity while remaining permeable to the space and time of the viewer.

One of the Lagares contains a thousand liters of water collected from the Park – a symbolic measure representing the estimated amount needed to produce a single copy of the book. Using water as medium, screen, and mirror, photographs of aquatic elements from the Park are projected onto its surface. The image vibrates, distorts, transforms, and each ripple echoes the creative gesture, mimicking the liquid matter from which it originated.

The other Lagar holds the waste from the book’s production process — trimmings, leftovers, fragments without final use. These are joined by organic remnants collected from the Park: leaves, branches, plant matter. In a pragmatic illusion of natural composting processes, the refuse becomes exhibit material — where each trace carries the memory of its journey.

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