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"Language of motion"

Photography Artist Book, 2024

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Language of Motion is an artist book that explores movement as a visual language. By tracing the lines created through motion, both captured in photographs and drawn over them, I investigated how the body and the movements leave behind marks that can be read, repeated, and reinterpreted. Each composition becomes a sentence, each gesture a form of writing. This project is an attempt to translate the invisible rhythm of passing moments into a system of signs, where motion becomes memory, and lines become language.

"Carrying Spaces"

Film Essay | Body, Memory & Belonging

Carrying Spaces began with a question:
What if home is not a fixed place, but something we carry within us? This film essay explores the idea that space is not just something we move through, it also moves through us. Our breath shifts, our posture adapts, our gestures soften or tighten in response to our surroundings. Every environment leaves a trace on the body, just as we leave traces behind. Through layered visuals and voiceover, I reflect on how we inhabit space, not passively, but as active participants. The film introduces three visual strands:
– The body as a vessel that holds space and adapts with it
– The marks we leave behind, subtle, physical evidence of our presence
– And the external world, the architectural and environmental spaces that shape us At the heart of this work is the idea that movement holds memory. We don’t just leave places behind, we carry them in the way we walk, sit, breathe, and move. What we call home might not be a room or a building, but a rhythm we return to, a familiarity written into the body. Carrying Spaces is a meditation on presence, transition, and the quiet choreography between us and the spaces we claim or are claimed by.

"In Between Bodies"

Video art, Animation, 2024

This animation emerged as an integral part of my broader research project, "In Between Bodies," where I explore the relationship between the human form, movement, and space. I focused specifically on animating the invisible yet palpable tension and dialogue created between dancers as they move through space. By tracing and filling in the negative spaces formed between bodies in choreography, this video reveals hidden shapes that continually appear, evolve, and vanish. Inspired by choreographers like Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and William Forsythe, I aimed to emphasize how movement itself generates new spatial realities. Each frame highlights the unnoticed shapes formed between moving dancers, turning these fleeting interactions into tangible, visual elements. Ultimately, this work investigates perception, inviting viewers to consider the intangible spaces that connect and separate us.

 Maria Passanha 2025

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