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Shallow Spaces is the final project of my journey here in Holland. It was a challenge to tell the story of a one year exchange in a few pages. More than autobiographical, I consider Shallow Spaces a graphic novel about an individual perception of reality once I felt living inside a comic narrative. A classic narrative, with a beginning, middle and end, where I met new characters that presented me new questions that induced me to change as the main character. Missing almost two months to go back to Brazil, I feel that I completed my story here. I hope that, somehow, it also completes the reader.
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Excuse me, sir.
Would you like some tea
or coffee?
Sorry. What?
Would you like some tea
or coffee, sir?
Hm... Yes?
Tea or coffee?
chapter one
Once you step on it,
you realize...
The far away is also touchable.
It would be like walking into an image. But besides the visual,
the mind also creates the sound...
Even so, somehow you know...
that it’s all your imagination.
Molenstraat 36
the cold...
Excuse me, how can
I get to Molenstraat?
the smell...
As soon as I got in house, I already felt some kind of nostalgia.
ready to be filled up with memories,
waiting for a happy end and sad goodbyes.
Some charming
empty spaces,
I have always lov
ed
these lights.
The table was
cleaner than ever.
There is somethingabout this moose...
But who are you?
I am the spirit of your house.
I am Mr. Molenstraat.
Did you hear it? Your new housemates
are coming.
Yo! Nice to meet you!
I’m Chris.
Try to hold it like this, you see?
Dope! I knew she would say yes!NOT IN MY HOUSE!
NOT IN MY HOUSE!Pedro, need to talk to you. I always like
your advices.
You’re like the guru of the house.
Do you smoke weed?
We’re family, bro.
Pedrooo, you’re the boss! Look at your jacket!
KNOCK KNOCK
Hello!
I’m Tom.
That is me? That’s great, Pedro!
“You’re only allowed to read it
after I leave.”
Nice to meet you, dude!
Don’t you ever push
people to use drugs on
my room! Hear me?!
The way you treat people, you’re so democratic!
There’s no way,
dude. I’m leaving on
February.
You know... I think Silva asked me out on a date.
Pedro, you’re from Brazil, right?
How it works there?
Pedro, we have no sugar, ok?
Yes. My tea, I like
with sugar. Please.
No man, the sugar
is over! No sugar!
What’s your favorite kind
of music?
First time
in Europe?
How come you got to Den Haag?
What kind of art do you do?
When they ask too many questions...
And you don’t even know the right answers...
It is like starting out of nothing.
Nobody knows
me here.
Maybe let the beard grow.
I can be whoever
I want to be.
No fear of changes.
My head looks different I hope it is not
only appearance.
This is the
fundamental concept of the sign. The sign for Peirce is anything that is another thing
to another something or someone.
So the reality is what would be the final
representation of the object set of all representations of those
who share the meaning.
The reality is a social
construction.
The reality is
necessarily a process of abstraction. It can only be
described after compliance with the logical process of abstraction through mainly
the sharing of meaning.
Individually we do not have the ability
to produce abstract knowledge sufficient to ensure a representation
of reality. We need a set of united interpretants in the same experience based on aesthetics, emerging from a
common sense of convergence.
And so from this common phenomenology of the world we share and communicate our findings and building a
knowledge that will gradually approach of what we expect, one
day, to be the reality.
“It’s only a hope.”
WTF?!
How did I get home?
Where is the party?
You see?? You got the Zeus sign!
Are you ok Pedro?
Fuck! Am I
still high?
What have
I done?
Fuck! Am I thinking in English or in Portuguese?
Fuck!
What’s
happen
ing?
I can’t
]
think!
“Peirce says that there is no single truth. The truth only has real value if it is a collective
construction.”
“Individually none of us can be sure if we are
dreaming or living reality.”
“If we are hallucinating or awake.”
Am I still here?
chapter two
In the same way I was free to be whoever I wanted to be, I was free to do whatever I wanted to do.
So Pedro, what're your working on?
Well, I'm really interested in comics and graphic novels.
Since I got here, I've started this project
called Sketch Diary, where I tell my exchange
experiences.
It's like everyday I try to draw what
happened in the present day.
Then every two months I have a short comic book that I publish
online.
You should bring this into your work here in the studio.
Yeah, I was thinking about that. But I'm
not sure.
I think it would be
too much...
Narcissist, you know?
Welcome everyone. My work is kinda of single
pages comics stories.
They are mostly about short
moments, about people, about storytelling...
I also have my Sketch Diaries, they are drawings of my everyday life. It’s a way for me to enjoy my time here
as an exchange student as much as I can, because I can only make interesting drawings if I live interesting stuff first.
Well, I think that's all.
Hope you enjoy
it.
Well...
Every artist is a storyteller. When
you say that's about storytelling, it means
nothing! It also sounds a little bit commercial,
too obvious. The viewer wants
to be amazed!
Here in the Academy we have a Fine Arts department, not an Illustration department.
No, wait! I do have a point! I swear!
It's better for you to start making a better profit
from Fine Arts.
I'm no artist.
What am I doing here?
I'm a fraud.
HELLO THERE!
WTF? Who are
you? I am the spirit of failure!
You can't hide from me! I'm everywhere, even in your own house!
There's a lot of me, but you...
you're all by yourself now!
C'mon! Tell me.
Are you an artist or a
mouse?
HA!HA!
HA!HA!
HA!
Of course Pollock is boring.
After they discovered that 2 plus 2 is 4
it became boring too.
“I want to merge my life and my art in order to give my life meaning.”
My parents watched a video in my portfolio, it was like... Ok, I know... you don't actually get it, right?
Well, actually... I also don't make this separation.
An art work speaks for itself, asks questions. An illustration
just gives you all the answers.
You see?
I dunno... For me it
means nothing.
They keep talking,
but it is just a
painting, y'know? Oh sorry. “Shallow” is kinda of a philosophical word for “empty”. Got it now?
When I think about Plato, the World of
Ideas...Sometimes I
can't get them into the real
concrete world.
It pisses me off.
Sometimes I think they
don't want “the beauty for
the beauty” so they make
“the ugly for the ugly”.
I was presenting my sculptures when
they looked at a trash pile behind me and
were like:
“Wow that's your work too? You should make more like
this!”. I mean... Am I stupid or what?
Pedro...
Monroe.
Your family is coming next week, right? Yes.
And how are you feeling?
Michele is not the story that I'm here
to tell.
But if this book was a fairy tale...
She would be the fairy.
And Jonas is my brother.
That's all I need to say about him.
And I think there's nothing he would say too.
Jonas, it's weird to see
you here.
Y' know? In my own house... Eating my food,
talking to Tom and Chris. Once you and
Michele saw all this, things seem different now.
Now I know I am not
esquizofrenic or something.
This world here became more
real in a way.
And sometimes, this feeling, it's
not so cool.
Let's go?
In the end, one month
passes as fast as four
pages.
And two chapters were not enough to live with someone
like Tom.
TOM fucking AUSTIN ladies and gentlemen! Can you believe it?
Goodbye mate.
I'll miss you dude.
Thank you!
Thank you.
I never wanted to go back in time. But if I
could at least...
make it pass more slowly...
Enjoy this one year in my own time...
Giving life a slower and more
careful look...
I always loved these lights.
Critical to the success of a visual narrative is the ability to convey time.
But the one thing that you have that nobody has is you. Your mind, your voice, your
story, your vision.
So write and draw and build and play and live as only you can. The moment that you feel that just possibly you're
walking on the street naked...
...exposing too much of your heart and your mind, what
exists on the inside showing too much of yourself...
That's the moment you may be starting to get it right.
It took some time for me to understand...
that making art...
is a sort of narcissism.
I am my own God.
RISE!
HAHA HA!
chapter three
After my last presentation, I've changed
my direction a little bit. Now I brought the
autobiographical issues from my Sketch Diaries
into my work in the studio. Then I started to make these big drawings.
The idea was to draw random
impressions from my routine.
I have realized the language of comics has the
power to transform time into space. Different from cinema, here the viewer is able to read
the sequences of images on his own time.
This way, by using myself as a subject,
I hope it's possible to make a visual knowledge
out of my life here.
This table also represents the enclosure of time, when you take
an object from daily life and put a frame
around it.
“I found it really clever. When you have different
frames together you create different layers
of meaning.”
“I like when sometimes
you lose the frame.
They are like vanishin
g
memories.”
“It was really
good for you to
draw bigger. Your
drawings expose
more of yourself.
Bravo!”
“You know exactly what
you're doing. It's very cl
ear
that you will become a
comic artist. But sometimes
we like you to make things
that you can't do.”
Yeah yeah
I know...
Fair enough.
Yeah but for
me this is not so
clear. So I have
to keep doing it,
y'know?
“Also I like the table, it was a good way to bring the enclosure of time into a 3D work.”
How much is it?
2,50 please.
Yo Mark!
Yo Pedro! How was your assessment?
It was pretty good actually. I think this
time I got it.
Now my next and final project will be a graphic novel. It seems like the next
step for me.
Dope! About what?
Like your Sketch
Diaries?
Kind of. But this time in colors and with more pages. I intend to be
more psychological too.Sick! Can't wait!
By the way, I bought
the chicken soup you asked me
for.
Chicken soup? Wtf?
Pedro, I had texted you for some
kitchen soap, man!
Hi Rachel.
What'up Pedro?
I thought you
had get back to
Brasil.
I think I've never totally come back.
My life here was so different. That release from our real life that
we feel in our life here.
You try and enjoy these last months. For me
they were gone so fast.Yeah... I'm
already missing this place.
I don't exactly miss it here. 'Cause everything
looks like a dream that I just woke up from.
And now...
I don't know exactly where to
put these memories in my mind.
And how is your graphic novel doing? I'm almost
finishing it. By the way, do you mind if I draw this
conversation?
I fucking love these lights.
Why? That is a good question. Why?
I don’t know. It's... It's the core of doing something like this.
It's an...
I'm a writer.
And I want to do it as good as I can,
almost at every cost. I mean...
If I could cut my left arm off to do a good novel, I would
do it.
Welcome everyone to my final
presentation. This second semester
I've done an autobiographical graphic novel, about my one year living
here.
Comics language has always been my main
interest while talking about time.
Since my exchange period is coming to an end, seeing myself as a character in a
comic book is a good way to deal with my twelve
months here.
Also I made a digital
version...
Then we can read it bigger, at the same time. I'm not sure if we have
enough time, but at least the first chapter.
Also some of the originals are on the wall, to show the process evolving.
Finally! Hello, Pedro! Sit here, we need
to talk. I'm worried about you, my dear.
These times I'm feeling a little bit
disconnected from you.
Yeah...I know. I haven't drawn you
in a long time.
But it's all good. I'm trying to be more autobiographical now.
A long time you haven't drawn me? What do you mean?
Yeah, y'know... One of my old
comics characters.
Oh my god... I knew you were going mad. All that messed
up thing about merging life
and art.
Wake up, Pedro! I've never been a
character of yours. It's YOU that are one of my characters.
What?
Yes, my dear. You're sort of my alter ego.
C'mon y'know...
I am an old lady, with some regrets. I've created you to live things that I've
never had time to do.
Am I not real? Are you kidding me? What about my family, my friends,
my graphic novel...
Fuck! Did you also create my graphic novel?
Graphic novel? No! I'm not a visual artist. I'm a writer. And this conversation is the end of my last book.
You're a writer...
Wait!
So, you're a
writer. You wrote
all of this.
Everything here is only words,
right?
Yep.
Even this floating
light over here? Did you also
write it?
No no...I don't know about it. I just described “a big dark room full of piles of books”.
No details.
Exactly!
We can only see the light because I drew it. I am the
one who fills the empty spaces in your mind.
Without me, your imagination is completely dark. If I don't
draw, you become as
unreal as me.
I see...
Okay, my dear. Perhaps I'm one of your
characters too...
Or I'm having a really weird existential crisis here.
Actually, I don't care that much.
You know that phrase?
It's like “If someone wrote it, it's real.”
So in the end... what's the difference?
Well... Okay.
Then... I'm real too.
I'm still here... right?
Yes, I'm still here.
Of every reality I could tell, I've chosen this one. And if you are reading it, I can feel a little
bit more life inside...
myself.
To my family and friends
Many thanks to Jonas, Paula and Ciências sem Fronteiras
PedroVó PedroVoh
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