Conceptual nominee

Learning to be in the space we exist was always something that, for me, proved to be an apparently more difficult task than for other children. Maybe because I always walked from one place to another, going from city to city, from house to house. I was never allowed to settle down in one place, leaving behind friends and familiar faces, having to start all over again. It's not an easy task for a child.
Thematically, this project arises from that sensation of a state of alterity, evoking the work of William Mumler in his inadvertent capture of the phantasmagoric and exploring the potential of analog photography as organic matter. The series intends to send the viewer into a deeper reflection on what it is to be human nowadays through the juxtaposition with what seems to be lacking that quality.
The empty spaces of the house are faced with the presence of a figure of reflecting surfaces, a specter lost in the mundane. Along with the physical spaces of the house, temporal spaces collide: the glimpse of humanity remaining is linked to that previous life, a life of sensations and routines that have now been broken by an external cause.

David Araújo Santos is 23 years old, was born in the Azores and has a degree in Cinema from the Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema, having completed the course in the field of Editing. Over the past few years, he has participated and worked in several short film projects in the areas of Editing, Artistic Direction and Script and Directing. He is currently finishing his Master's Degree in Aesthetics (Cinema and Photography), at NOVA FCSH University.
In addition to cinema and photography, his areas of interest are also linked to philosophy and psychology.
He now intends to explore and deepen his photographic look, using his works as a medium to tell stories of what is familiar to us, but also what is strange. It is this strangeness that seems to guide his work, at the same time raising questions about what it means to be human these days.