Portuguese photographer Nuno Moreira’s latest work ZONA plunges deeply into the unconscious by visually giving form to recurrent dreams and explorations on interior landscapes. ZONA is a series done between Tokyo and Lisbon and best understood in book format with accompanied words by writer José Luis Peixoto.
Similar to theater, or perhaps cinema, ZONA was choreographed from scratched and based on different sketches and diaries by the author. The live-performance was motivated by a series of dreams that were afterwards manifested in different artworks and in a single day-shooting that resulted in a book.
Nuno’s previous work, “State of Mind” (2013), dealt with people from all sorts of backgrounds absorbed and lost in their thoughts. The pictures were more conventional and root in reality but nonetheless stimulating. In ZONA, a project conceived while the author was living in Japan, we see a shift from the photographers’ s point of view by getting closer to his subject matter: thoughts, dreams, archetypes, the unknown. ZONA is an attempt to look into these dark corners of the human mind and give them shape through pictures. Although these themes are difficult to address and even speak about, the approach is clear and similar to conceptual photography or cinema.
The pictures on ZONA are symbolic and puzzling. Like all good mysteries there’s enough ambiguity for the viewer to bring their own imagination into play.
The resulting work is a sensuous interior journey. A silent and by all means dark book that asks to be discovered time and again.
Comprised of about 30 black-white photographs, ZONA comes in a beautiful cloth bound limited edition of 300 copies that can be purchased at the authors website.
