A sense of boundlessness and slight unease pervades us when viewing and walking on Eduardo Coimbra’s Silent Steps (1994 – 2004). This complex installation consists of a vast blanket of coarse white salt crystals spread out across the gallery floor, its surface punctured by a dozen human footprints. Each of the footprints reveals beneath it an illuminated image of a blue sky with cumulus clouds. Standing on the gallery floor beside the salt surface are four stuffed dog legs positioned as if they belong to a disembodied dog in motion. The work as a whole deals with issues such as spatial displacement, the sensory aspects of movement, tactility and immateriality.

Coimbra clearly manipulates and challenges our perception and understanding of movement. For example, the combination of white walls with a large area of white salt on the floor containing unexpected images of sky beneath the footprints creates a sense of perplexing awkwardness by reversing the natural order. Walking on the coarse salt, we feel the immediacy and the materiality of the medium, which in turn heightens our awareness of the tactile component of that commonplace physical activity. As we walk on the salt, the sky-scapes in the light-boxes keep diverting us from reality and induce in us a feeling of distance, of a space beyond our reach and a sense of immateriality that here clearly alludes to the visual aspects of walking.

Why does Coimbra use an image of the sky with cumulus clouds? We know such clouds are not threatening, but are rather the kind of low atmospheric formations that often appear in the sky in beautiful sunny day and add ever-changing scenic interest to it. We also know that clouds are not objects per se, but rather masses of tiny droplets of humidity that absorb and reflect light. By nature transient, clouds accumulate and disintegrate with apparent ease while floating freely in an indefinable space. This continuous movement and transformation seems to suggest another realm and engender in us often nostalgic feelings and a longing for freedom.

In Silent Steps Coimbra places us between opposites, and disturbs our notion and understanding of what is actually there and what ought to have been there. A similar apprehension is felt when we look at the two pairs of dried and stuffed dog legs that Coimbra has intentionally placed slightly wider apart than would be natural. Seeing four such legs placed in a walking position would usually be enough for the human brain to construct a mental image of the moving dog’s absent body. But again, Coimbra disturbs and heightens our normal perception and judgement, this time by positioning the legs so that what we see is at odds with what we know. Thus we become sensitised to and more analytical of the various aspects of the everyday act of walking. Coimbra also seems to be prompting us to reflect on the limits of existencial possibilities. Where do such possibilities begin, and where do they end? Walking on the salt is also a markedly different experience each time. Silent Steps is a work in progress and as such its behaviour can be unpredictable. The salt is constantly absorbing the air humidity and will gradually transform itself into a solid mass, often by the end of the exhibition period.

2004

obs: this text is a fragment of the presentation text in the catalog of the exhibition Unbound - Installations by seven artists from Rio de Janeiro, held at Parasol unit, London, England, in May 2004