Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, Project (2013)
[Theatrum Orbis Terrarum 2013, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum 2013 — Core of the Project]

THEATRUM ORBIS TERRARUM (2013)

THEATRUM ORBIS TERRARUM (2013)

The Theatre of the World (1570) is thought to be the world’s first modern atlas. Theatrum Orbis Terrarum may be con- sidered a film exploration, a sensorial journey, a vertiginous history, but definitely an adventure story. 'When I look at the sea for long, I lose interest on what happens on land' says our shaman leading character.

In the sixteenth century the Padrão Real hung from the ceiling of the Map Room in the Casa da Índia. It was a secret map, guarded from the eyes of foreign spies, which was changed and reworked with the comings and goings of each expedition.

Aided by scientific equipment to measure distance, the navigators dreamed up the representation of the expanses that they had covered. When at sea, they looked up to the heavens and gauged their path by the stars, hands drawing in space fictional lines that carved territories. Upon returning to shore, they took the map that had previously belonged to others as their own, erasing divisive lines and constructing new borders.

The map that they followed has been lost over time, and what remains of it is a stolen copy, made from memory by one of the cartographers in order to outwit enemies.

Maps are imaginary lines projected in space, visual representations of territories that have been traversed. They create spaces for navigating, utopias and dystopias, fictions created and broken by memory. Like the colourful banners that bear the title of the exhibition, drawing homographs in the air, maps devise coded messages that are then exposed to the entropy of the elements. The spaces dreamed up in Theatrum Orbis Terrarum act as a map made of memories that sketch out their own territory, constructing and reconstructing the minute borders existing between the three screens.