Buoyed Places
The human hand reconfigures nature in different degrees and modellings, changing the landscape.
In S. Tomé and Príncipe, the transformation of landscape through “human hand” appears in a scant and piecemeal manner, with notes of “man manipulated nature” placed in a giant and bountiful virgin nature.
In the field of documentary photography, it is interesting to observe, and also study and catalog, how little man has taken over nature in this country. However, the fact that it does exist evokes some anthropological issues of the adequacy of space; and the appropriation of places, through geometric figures.
Observing the architecture built by these men – with little use of the technology from big cities –the abstract notion of geometry is noticeable.
This vision built in straight lines, which cannot be found in nature, dates back to the stage of the man-gatherer, lasting until the present day (Aleksandrov, 1985).That is, the foundation of ownership and architecture is the same anywhere in the world, since the geometric constructions created by man, turns out to be an extension of himself (Benjamin Carvalho, 1964). As an eg.: a small rectangular beacon built with only three sticks in straight lines, has the same architectural foundation as a building with ten windows: the rectangle.
In short, the project “Buoyed Places” aims to document the appropriation of São Tomé and Príncipe’s social landscape by man, through geometric shapes – using his own body as a tool for establishing limits and adapting to space, in order to achieve intimacy with the world.
