Santa Clara came out... and is back in again!

Today was the Festa de SANTA CLARA, there was procession and all... pics to follow when I sober up!
I would write more if I could, but I cant... :)
Today I swam in the open sea for the first time since I am on holiday here in the AZores! Amazing!
I encourage everyone to come visit the islands... you will not regret and never forget at the same time.
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MY COUSIN JOSE TORRES DIED! A SAD DAY FOR PORTUGUESE SOCCER!

Today the Blog is in Honor of my second cousin removed Jose Torres. His father was brother to my father's father, my grandfather Sidonio Da Guia Senica.

Torres was a major personality in Portuguese Soccer and we will all miss him in Portugal, the country is mourning his passing, so am I and my family.

Below is a text I got from the internet, in english, summing up Jose Torre's Bio.

LISBON: Portuguese football is in mourning for Jose Torres, star centre-forward in the mid-1960s of both Benfica and the national team who finished a best-ever third at the 1966 World Cup finals in England.

Torres. who has died at 71, succeeded veteran captain Jose Aguas at the centre of the Benfica attack and, with his height and strength, provided an ideal foil for the power of top-scoring team-mate Eusebio. He scored 14 goals in 34 internationals and won nine league titles and six domestic cups with Benfica.

Born on 8 September 1938 in Torres Novas, Torres joined Benfica at 20 and was three times a European Champions Cup runner-up with them, in in 1963 against Milan, in 1965 against Internazionale and in 1968 against Manchester United at Wembley. He retired in 1980, aged 42, having scored 217 goals in 384 games in club football with Benfica, Vitória Setubal and Estoril-Praia.

He later coached Vitória and Boavista and guided Portugal at the 1986 World Cup finals in Mexico. Despite beating England 1-0 in their opening game, Portugal were eliminated at the group stage.

Torres had been suffering from Alzheimer's.



From: http://www.sportsfeatures.com/soccernews/story/47376/jose-torres-the-perfect-foil-for-eusebio-with-both-benfica-and-portugal

HA FESTA NA ALDEIA!

Without knowing, and I did not really plan to visit the Azores that well, I arrived during the week of the festivities of SANTA CLARA the Saint that gives name to my street, Santa Clara...

As I write now, there is music outside just 2 minutes walking from my house (my parents), from our balcony we can see the church all lit up and pretty ( I will post a pic of this... its a must see...).

I am going to bed now with the music of PIMBA singers and some Regional Folklore singing, its total BLISS just what I needed for my holiday! :)

God Bless tradition!

I do not join in because its not my thing anymore, but I aplaude and encourage those who do. My parents have been collecting money for these festivities for a couple months now, my mother collects the donations from all our neighbours and my father helps with work, normally that means he cooks for the food stands held at the party.

It feels like I never left the Azores!

E o Mesmo e Mais Forte!

Everything looks smaller...

I walk to the gym everyday, its just a 15 minutes walk that I do with pleasure.
I take the same root I would take to go to hight school when I was in attendance centuries ago, Escola Secundaria Antero de Quental. I pass the school and in an additional 3 minutes I am at a gym, at a new hotel close by. Its a small gym but very well lit with natural light. I like it.
Today I noticed that all the streets are smaller, all the houses and doors and buildings in my way to the gym are smaller... the gardens are smaller the benches are smaller... the only thing that remains the same are the smells, a sweet and salty smell of humid atlantic air, terrible if you want to dry your clothes outside, but so nice when you have as background the sound of the waves crashing agains the rocks!
I love these islands, so much of them make what and who I am today. I travelled the world and I still think that the AZORES are the most beautiful place in the world!


sid costa

I Posed as a Daddy ! :)

Today I went to the largest shopping mall here in Ponta Delgada with my sister, her husband and my niece. While they were shopping for groceries I strolled around the shopping mall with my niece on her baby wheels! I looked like a nice sweet daddy and enjoyed all the looks of the young ladies who with their yes were saying "sweet... hot daddy... " :).
I DECIDED!
I want a baby, who is up for it?
:)

GYM SUBSCRIPTION! YES PLEASE!!!

Today I took a monthly pass at a gym here in Ponta Delgada, it was inevitable in view of all the food and alcohol that I am submitting myself too:) I have been drinking at all meals and the food is just so good!!!
Just as an example of the food extravaganza... the first two days of my stay back home, one neighbour brought rice pudding, Azores Style, My mother is cooking all the stuff I love, my sisters are sending me daily gifts of home cooked food... I am eating like its my last meal... I missed it all!!! :)
As a consequence I decided to at least sign up for a monthly pass at a gym, its done, now! I need to go everyday, except weekends... Hopefully I can meet someone hot also, to make my stay here a bit more pleasurable :) Eye Candy Is essential at any Gym!!!
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Holiday in the Azores!

As you all know I am portuguese but from the Azores Islands, and to be more precise, from Sao Miguel Island.
I have landed back home 2 days ago and will be staying for 4 weeks with my parents, I have not visited for 2 years and have a young niece which is also my Goddaughter in the eyes of the Lord! She is a sweet thing and looks just like my younger sister, her mother, although the neighbours say she looks just like me... but all my nieces and nephews look just like me according to the neighbours :).
It is good to be back home and it comes at a good time when I am going through some though moments and having to take some tough decisions in my life, personally and professionally.
I come to the Azores after having spent about 6 months in Dubai, where I went to find a job in the art world, following some encouraging prospects relayed to me by my contacts there. The truth is that nothing happened there on the job front, a lot of promisses and a lot of fluff job offers did not amount to a real job so I come to this holiday a bit disappointed that my Dubai project did not happen as I hoped...
In Portugal people say that when God closes a window, he opens a door, and that is more or less what has happened in Dubai, just about when I was ready to quit and pack up and return to London, I received a prospect of a job offer in Doha, after some visits to Qatar the prospect materialised into a verbal job offer that I accepted. I am now in the process of waiting to receive the proper offer and contract to decide when to move to Doha, what I hope will happen start of October.
The Azores is a beautiful place to rest, and God knows I need a rest, I need a recalibration of forces and energies before I decide finally if I am returning to Doha or to London!
This first post is just to give you all the background of why I am in the Azores now, and I will try and be disciplined enough to write here everyday about some aspect of my stay here. I can only hope that someone will be interested enough to read about it and maybe even comment, either here or through the facebook link!
For now that is it!

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Vincent Fournier at the London Art Fair with The Steps Gallery

http://www.wallpaper.com/art/Space-Project-by-Vincent-Fournier/4211

Atelier Morales Hermanos Enemigos, 2009

Atelier Morales

Hermanos Enemigos, 2009

‘Our most bitter enemies are our own kith and kin. Kings have no brothers, no sons, no mother!‘ - Honore De Balzac

It is an oxymoronic title the one given to this last work by Atelier Morales, Hermanos Enemigos. Brothers are supposed to be a close knit team and work towards the same goal. It is certain that arguments are expected but not to the extreme that they become enemies. The shared genetics, parenting, cultural and social beliefs during their upbringing and development should guarantee that brothers will always find a way to get along, never really becoming enemies, even after long disputes. It’s often said that blood is thicker than water.

Why do some brothers become enemies? The documented historical cases and mythical narrations used by Atelier Morales to inspire and develop this series is imbued and splashed with blood! Real and mythic blood! They allude to brothers that have resorted to violence and violent stratagems to undercut and annihilate each other. Where has the energy necessary to bring-about the outcomes of the eleven cases illustrated by Atelier Morales come from? One of the possible answers to this question is in the religious, social, cultural and political contextualization of the conflicts in question. While the current series of photographs does not aspire to give us any answers, I believe it suggests different outcomes to the conflicts.

The series itself has been inspired by the geopolitics of many internal conflicts occurring today in the world, as enumerated by Nina Menocal. Some of them are: conflicts between Israel and Palestine; Hamas and Fatha inside Palestine, Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland; Cubans in Miami and Havana; Basque separatists and Spaniards; Uigures and the Han in Xinjiang; Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda; and Sindis and Sijs in India. These contemporary conflicts are both a beginning and endpoint for the Hermanos Enemigos series.

Atelier Morales first started to think about the current conflicts in the world between close nations, close religious groups or factions and internal national disputes for independence or recognition. It was after realizing that the contemporary map of conflicts and disputes are not between factions that are distant from each other, geographically, ideologically and politically, but between factions that are cohabiting in the same nation or region. They are what in lato sensu geopolitical terms we could call brothers. They are conflicts between bothers that have become enemies.

One of the most interesting features of this new series by Atelier Morales is the way they have succeeded in focusing our attention on some of the contemporary conflicts and disputes listed above, through a very thorough and respectable research into the historical and mythical conflicts and disputes among brothers that have become enemies. Through this series the critical and aesthetic sensitive eye of Atelier Morales renders into photography a contemporary view of these historical and mythical narrated conflicts.

A close look at the photographs shows us that the places where the central characters are photographed are all old, abandoned and derelict buildings. This dereliction mirrors the lives and realities that each character has to exist in. They are ghetto like environments, destitute like the lives of those that become the victims of the conflicts in question.

Hermanos Enemigos is, in this sense, an astute contemporary critique of the several conflicts and disputes among close factions in the world. It is an attempt to highlight the fact that at the bad end of these conflicts there is only desolation and none of the factions can ultimately become victorious. When brothers fight, when brothers become enemies and when there are murders among them, nothing good comes of it. Fratricide as proven by the historical and mythical accounts that inspire this series does not bring anything good for the surviving murderer either.

By highlighting these very obvious facts Atelier Morales tries to bring into the forefront of our minds alternative resolutions to current conflicts and disputes in the world. They try to instigate a break in the pattern of the survival of the strongest principle. Sometimes the strongest faction is not always right so that does not mean that it should always win... and sometimes there is not even a need for there to be a winner and a loser. As it should be with brothers, they should share or compromise. Becoming enemies is not a solution.

Sidonio Costa

Senior Curator and Collectors Club Manager

www.stepsgallery.com

Current Exhibition: http://www.stepsgallery.co.uk/ateliermorales1.html