Past exhibition at Lumiar Cité:

Caspar Hall
phoenix dactylifera
30.11.2011 - 08.01.2012

Info
Press-Release (port)
Press-Release (eng)
Exhibition View

At the end of the summer of 2011, Caspar Hall (Shrewsbury, United Kingdom, 1967) completed a one-month artistic residency in Alta de Lisboa, under the Maumaus International Residency Programme. During that period, the artist investigated the specific urban circumstances surrounding the Lumiar Cité exhibition space and the types of relationship that artistic projects presented there have been able to establish – or not – with the community living in its vicinity.
In the installation that Caspar Hall has developed, the central piece is a sculpture of a palm tree that dominates both the ground and upper floors of the gallery. It appears to visitors as a connection related both to the space and to the time of the year in which the exhibition takes place. The sculpture recalls the Christian image of the nativity scene and, in addition, the palm tree that, according to the Qur'an, sheltered and fed the Virgin Mary when Jesus was born. The exhibition also presents a selection of photographs and other documentary materials that contextualize the installation.

Caspar Hall does not attempt to relate to any particular theological ideas or religious identities, but he is interested in questioning how certain universal stories are imagined and reinterpreted locally. Subtly, the artist also seeks to draw attention to affinities between Christianity and Islamism and to the many meanings that archetypes can adopt.


Project financed with the support of the European Commission.