Sérgio Cruz

Pastorinhos

My art practice has always been an intuitive and automatic response driven by personal events, thoughts and feelings, integrated in to my daily routine.

“Pastorinhos” (“Young Shepherds”) is the result of an interaction with the natural environment of Nodar during an artist residency of three weeks in June 2009. It is a short film with about five minutes, combining function and ethnographic documentary. It was the result of a dialogue with an a sleep place, registering and reinterpreting it.

Elements such as the landscape, vegetation, agriculture and breeding, legends and myths, were some of the realities that were on the basis for the design and implementation of this process. My interest indeveloping a work of this nature is clearly related to the fact of being born in a rural context in which agriculture and animals were an important feature in my daily life.

This proposal is also in some way related to the documentary approach that I developed during a series of artist residencies in other countries such as China, Mozambique and the United States, which have resulted in experimental films from an observation and consultation process with local people.

This was my first visit to Nodar, and during this period of research, I discovered the village and its inhabitants, and the way they interact with each other and the environment. It was a process based on an intuitive response to the events, thoughts and feelings integrated in everyday life. In “Pastorinhos” I tried to refine my visual language. I developed a visual work with natural light, using the water reflections and mirrors to manipulate this natural light. I am interested in the photographic side of image.

Sérgio Cruz is an independent artist/filmmaker, sound designer and editor. He was born in Vila Nova de Famalicão (Portugal) and holds a degree in Sound and Image by the Arts School of the Oporto Catholic University. In 2005 he moved to London where he took the MA Fine Arts at Central Saint Martins and Arts in Dance for the Screen at London Contemporary Dance School. Since 2004 he has been working as a video creator and sound designer for dance pieces, installations and feature films, having directed seven works of his own. He also has worked as choreographer, dancer and VJ. Sérgio Cruz received several prizes such as the New Creators prizegranted by the Clube de Artes e Ideias, the New Talent FNAC prize at the Indie Lisboa festival, the best short movie at Tom de Vídeo 06 festival and the Red Mansion Art Prize.