the 9 days on stage

The artist Pia Eikaas employs materials such as rope, lines, and nets. During an artists’ residency in São Paulo in 2017, Eikaas first began to take interest in the protective veils that envelop buildings during construction or renovation and restoration, particularly after having witnessed a changing of the Copan’s protective netting. When the building’s degradation began to pose risks to passersby, such nets were placed on the façade of the iconic building, changing its color and shape, placing it into a provisional state in which it remains today. The work, Ghost (lygia lina lisa), makes new use of this material to create a ghostly figure that was installed at the rear-facing side of the Copan, watching and haunting over the lot. The other work, Holes healing identity or whatever that is anyway, consisted of five small pocket mirrors adorned with nets, ropes, and plaster that were placed along a border with USP’s property, where the grass ends and the concrete begins, reminiscent of the time when it served as a parking lot, reflecting on the passage of time and past uses of this space. The mirrors resized the landscape in a minimalist gesture, while the light from the reflections during the night seemed to be that of stars falling, an inversion of earth and sky. During the exhibition there was a night watch by security guards, who provided services to the university – the objects’ scintillation caused one of them to be removed from the stage.