SuperNATIVO* (New Mexico), photographic installation, artist’s book, and archive, 2022.

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SuperNATIVO* is a practice-based interdisciplinary research project that aims to document hand- painted commercial signs and their creators in Brazil and around the world, in photography and video, to preserve this ephemeral form of vernacular design in a digital museum, and to reinterpret these paintings in physical artworks (photographic installations and artist’s books), raising awareness about this neglected aspect of our global cultural heritage.

 

This ethnographic project is a form of collective storytelling through the visual languages of painting and photography, where the hand-painted commercial signs tell the stories of the cities, countries, and the world in which their painters and their communities live. This version of the project was photographed in New Mexico (Albuquerque, Santa Fé, Taos, and surroundings), and it reveals the landscapes, objects, and specially, the overlapping of three very distinct peoples and cultures: indigenous Native-American, Mexican, and American. I also conducted photographic archival research on the occurrences of hand-painted commercial signs in historical photographs, and on other photographers who were also interested in this topic.

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Made possible by the Richard E. Greenleaf Visiting Library Scholar Award, from the University of New Mexico / Latin American & Iberian Institute and CSWR Center for Southwest Research.

 

© Frederico Câmara 2023.