OPEN Eco: Eunice Pais, Domingas & Rosa: The Celestials, 2022
Using still and moving image as mediums with a combination of experimental and traditional techniques, Eunice Pais responds intuitively and intimately to themes in current culture. Bridging the material with the immaterial through working in community, her work often has a strong emotional resonance with people, and the world around them.
Eunice says: "Photography can go beyond images that document climate crisis and its impact on communities. The proposed image ushers a framework in photography that curiously inquires about social ecology and community sustenance. What does it look like to create in community for the community first? How can we mitigate waste in photography while building a more equitable practice? How are intergenerational and intragenerational cooperations pivotal in creating an industry that matches the images portrayed when addressing issues such as climate crisis?
This image distills these questions into art making. The image is a result of the people in front of the camera working in agency behind the camera to co-create images that are truthful."
A self-taught visual artist, Eunice Pais works to sensibly cue emotional change; to make difficult feelings understandable; to create small but noticeable impacts. Eunice celebrates possibilities and human-nature interactions. The approach – often a celebration of inclusion, equity, joy, and nostalgia – is the core of her practice. In 2022, Eunice has shown her work for the first time at The Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool, UK. In the series Ancestral Folk Eunice captures the essence of ancestry, femininity, future, and inclusion. The same year also marks Eunice’s first group exhibition in The Netherlands, called Amidst the threads, Our names become.
Photo Fringe invited artists to propose a single image to engage audiences and help us imagine a greener, fairer world. Artists were asked to respond to the question “How can photography make a difference to the climate crisis?"
The resulting outdoor exhibition of selected images by twenty artists can be found on Worthing seafront until the end of April 2023.
Sponsored by Metro Imaging Ltd with funding from Arts Council England National Lottery Project Fund and Worthing Borough Council.