Salomé LAMAS (b.1987, Lisbon) studied cinema in Lisbon and Prague and visual arts (MFA) in Amsterdam and is a PhD candidate in film studies in Coimbra. As a PhD candidate her research in film studies tries to narrow down problems of translation and critique in non-fiction filmmaking. How concepts such as language, translation, critique and history are engaged together with the cinematic apparatus in order to reveal reality and to produce truthful proposals. What are the ethical implications in the act of transforming reality?
Lamas works with hybrid documentary and artistic projects that tread new paths in form and content. These works aim to challenge conventional methods of film production just as much as they should cross the defining lines between various filmic and artistic forms of aesthetic expression. In a fertile occupation of “no man's land” Lamas attempts to dissolve the apparent border between documentary and fiction; with an interest in the intrinsic relationship between storytelling, memory, and history, while using the moving image to explore the traumatically repressed, seemingly unrepresentable, or historically invisible, from the horrors of colonial violence to the landscapes of global capital.
Rather than conventionally dwelling in the periphery between cinema and the visual arts, fiction and documentary, she has been attempting to make these languages my own, challenging the lines between genres and modes of exhibition. Fearless films, both in the formal and narrative risks they take, and in their physical performance, as we see the author trapped, hanging, falling or sitting silently behind the camera.
Most of her works are launched by a journey to an unknown reality, that she consciously occupies as a strange body clashing against the surroundings, triggering drama and patiently waiting for reality to become extraordinary.
She is the author of The Community (2012); Encounters with Landscape 3x (2012); VHS: Video Home System (2010-2012); Terra de Ninguém (2012) (En. No Man's Land); Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (2013); Le Boudin (2014); The Tower (2015); Mount Ananea (5856) (2015); Eldorado XXI (2016) and Extinction (2018) among others.
Lamas work has been awarded and showcased both in art venues and film festivals such as the Berlinale-Berlin International Film Festival; NIMK Netherlands Instituut voor Mediakunst; Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation; BAFICI; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía; Mar del Plata Film Festival; FIAC; Rome Film Festival; MNAC Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea-Museu do Chiado; DocLisboa; Documenta Madrid; MoMA (NY); Guggenheim Bilbao; Film Society Lincoln Center; Pacific Film Archive-Berkeley University; Harvard Film Archive; Museum of Moving Images (NY); Jewish Museum (NY); Fid Marseille; Arsenal Institut fur film und videokunst; Cinéma du Réel; CalArts; UCLA Hammer Museum; Museu de Serralves; La Casa Encendida; CPH:DOX; Bozar-Centre of Fine Arts; TABAKALERA; Les Rencontres Internationales-Nouveau Cinema et Art Contemporain, etc… She collaborates with the production company O Som e a Furia and is represented by Miguel Nabinho Gallery-Lisboa 20.
Lamas was awarded fellowships at Rockefeller Foundation-Bellagio Center; Bogliasco Foundation; a MacDowell Colony; a Yaddo; DAAD Berliner Künstlerprogramm, etc…
Salomé Lamas lives and works in Lisbon (Portugal).
Lamas works with hybrid documentary and artistic projects that tread new paths in form and content. These works aim to challenge conventional methods of film production just as much as they should cross the defining lines between various filmic and artistic forms of aesthetic expression. In a fertile occupation of “no man's land” Lamas attempts to dissolve the apparent border between documentary and fiction; with an interest in the intrinsic relationship between storytelling, memory, and history, while using the moving image to explore the traumatically repressed, seemingly unrepresentable, or historically invisible, from the horrors of colonial violence to the landscapes of global capital.
Rather than conventionally dwelling in the periphery between cinema and the visual arts, fiction and documentary, she has been attempting to make these languages my own, challenging the lines between genres and modes of exhibition. Fearless films, both in the formal and narrative risks they take, and in their physical performance, as we see the author trapped, hanging, falling or sitting silently behind the camera.
Most of her works are launched by a journey to an unknown reality, that she consciously occupies as a strange body clashing against the surroundings, triggering drama and patiently waiting for reality to become extraordinary.
She is the author of The Community (2012); Encounters with Landscape 3x (2012); VHS: Video Home System (2010-2012); Terra de Ninguém (2012) (En. No Man's Land); Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (2013); Le Boudin (2014); The Tower (2015); Mount Ananea (5856) (2015); Eldorado XXI (2016) and Extinction (2018) among others.
Lamas work has been awarded and showcased both in art venues and film festivals such as the Berlinale-Berlin International Film Festival; NIMK Netherlands Instituut voor Mediakunst; Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation; BAFICI; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía; Mar del Plata Film Festival; FIAC; Rome Film Festival; MNAC Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea-Museu do Chiado; DocLisboa; Documenta Madrid; MoMA (NY); Guggenheim Bilbao; Film Society Lincoln Center; Pacific Film Archive-Berkeley University; Harvard Film Archive; Museum of Moving Images (NY); Jewish Museum (NY); Fid Marseille; Arsenal Institut fur film und videokunst; Cinéma du Réel; CalArts; UCLA Hammer Museum; Museu de Serralves; La Casa Encendida; CPH:DOX; Bozar-Centre of Fine Arts; TABAKALERA; Les Rencontres Internationales-Nouveau Cinema et Art Contemporain, etc… She collaborates with the production company O Som e a Furia and is represented by Miguel Nabinho Gallery-Lisboa 20.
Lamas was awarded fellowships at Rockefeller Foundation-Bellagio Center; Bogliasco Foundation; a MacDowell Colony; a Yaddo; DAAD Berliner Künstlerprogramm, etc…
Salomé Lamas lives and works in Lisbon (Portugal).