Sisson Studio

I never thought of exhibiting my work. Bárbara always talked about it. Thinking back on my history, I never contemplated showing my work in this type of format.

Then in 2008, a few design competitions popped up and with some encouragement, I submitted my work. That experience was fulfilling, so I decided to submit as much as could to as many competitions I knew existed. Gratefully, later that year our work “City Sounds – The Original Score” was awarded and “4+1 Elements” was published in the international section of the “Oddinary” exhibition’s book. The paths were opened.

As I said, I never thought of displaying my work. I’m one of those guys who would rather be sitting on a chair, getting fat, drinking coffee, listening to music and getting inspired; all the while searching for themes to work on, looking for competitions with challenging subjects, working the design of our Studio’s clients and, mainly, trying to work out my problems in life, that are the main subjects of my work. I’m too “planning” and Bárbara’s too “executing”, and that’s the source of our harmony at work.

But it happened on January 23; our first exhibition.

Being followed on twitter by Festa Shout, Bárbara happened to read that it was the “last chance to send your proposal to exhibit your work……. etc.” or something to that effect. Following the link, we visited the website and saw that the event would include other 24 artists at the Bhering Chocolate’s old facility, in Santo Cristo, Rio de Janeiro.

That gave a hell of a boost to Bárbara, being a mountain goat under the Capricorn sign; she only stops when she reaches the top of the mountain, or accomplishes her goal. She flung herself into the task of writing my release and selecting which artwork would be shown. In short, she was my curator and I spent the whole week calling her that. Behind all my fears I managed to keep my sense of humor intact. She made it my task to decide the order of presentation, the exhibition’s name and its personality.

I wasn’t sure about which name to use, as the whole visual concept would follow it: “Musak” (as featured on the release) or “Born of a Broken Man”. I kept the second, one of my artwork’s title.

Then came the torture: to set everything up in less than a week with a local holiday in the middle, Saint Sebastian. The event would happen on Saturday; they called us on Monday morning.
Bárbara quickly came up with an idea, a version of the one she kept feeding for quite a time. On Tuesday we went to visit the location. We chose a “Saw” style room.

But after returning home we realized that our design wouldn’t fit, time was running out and costs were pretty high. We had to cut corners to get straight to the point, otherwise bye bye event.

In the end, I loved the experience. We met friends, family and unknown people just like we would for a cup of coffee at home. Everything ran smoothly during the day and the event staff made us feel at home throughout the entire experience.

We would like to send a special thanks to the following people:

- Fox, Raoni, Isabel and Fábio Leão for the opportunity.
- Fabrício Nunes for the photographs.
- Klaus for the car, snacks and blessed helping hand.
- Ana Paula (Studio Alfa) for the printings at a reasonable cost.
- Alex, Cris, Anderson Kbsa, Ângela, Laércio, Vítor and Zé Carlos for the mp3 players.
- Aubrey Kane for the english version of this post.

// See all pictures on Flickr and more on ihateflash.
// Videos by Macarronada on Vimeo.