essay /

I carry your heart with me, I carry it in my heart, by Will Self

This 6 chapter essay inspires a 6 chapter performance for Edgar Martins’ new project, about the death and disappearance of South African photojournalist Anton Hammerl, during the 2011 Libyan war.

available soon
essay /

Against documentary, by Mark Durden

This essay was first published in Edgar Martins’ book What Photography & Incarceration have in Common with an Empty Vase and examines the artist’s approach in tackling the complex theme of incarceration and photographic ontology.

english /
essay /

Destinerrance, interview by Nuno Faria

This wide-ranging interview was first published in the catalogue of Martins’ exhibition Destinerrance: the place of the dead is the place of photography at CIAJG, Portugal. Faria and Martins discuss his practice, exhibition and collaboration with the Institute of Legal Medicine, Portugal.

english / portuguese /
essay /

Why have the dead come back?, by Roger Luckhurst

This essay was first published in New Formations and examines how the critical theory of photography has become increasingly suspicious of the political and aesthetic value of images of the dead, even as the archive of images of the dead continues to shock.

english /
essay /

Instruments of escape, by Timothy Secret

This essay was first published in Martins’ Siloquies and Soliloquies on Death, Life and Other Interludes and reflects on the artist’s incursions into the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences and in particular his representation of instruments of suicide.

english /
essay /

‘Death, squared’, by Roger Luckhurst

This essay was first published in Martins’ Siloquies and Soliloquies on Death, Life and Other Interludes and reflects on the artist’s method to represent and critique death, as well as his use of historical, archival imagery.

english / portuguese /
essay /

Corporeal images, by Sérgio Mah

This essay was first published in Martins’ Siloquies and Soliloquies on Death, Life and Other Interludes and reflects about the ethical, epistemological and ontological representation of the dead body.

english / portuguese /
essay /

00:00.00, by Peter D. Osborne

This essay was first published in Martins’ 00:00.00, a project developed from an artistic collaboration with BMW and reflects on the culture of flux and flow that we live in, a culture haunted by transience and mobility.

english /
essay /

Space in the image, by Sérgio Mah

This essay was first published in Martins’ The Rehearsal of Space and the Poetic Impossibility to Manage the Infinite, developed with the European Space Agency. Mah examines Martins’ subject from the framework of Foucault’s conception of heterotopia.

english / portuguese / spanish /
essay /

A sense of wonder, byJohn Gribbin

This essay was first published in Martins’ The Rehearsal of Space and the Poetic Impossibility to Manage the Infinite, developed with the European Space Agency. Gribbin discusses Martins’ work from the framework of his sense of wonder at the Universe.

english / spanish /
essay /

A guided tour of infinity, by João Seixas

This essay was first published in Martins’ The Rehearsal of Space and the Poetic Impossibility to Manage the Infinite, developed with the European Space Agency. Seixas draws on Martins’ reflections on the fallibility of photographic language to discuss the concept of infinity.

english / spanish /
essay /

The poetic quality of the infinite, by Leonor Nazaré

This essay was first published in the catalogue of Martins’ exhibition The Poetic Impossibility to Manage the Infinite at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon. Nazaré reflects on our historical fascination with the unknown and the utopia of space as dystopia.

english / portuguese / spanish /
essay /

‘Edgar I nothing am’, by Geoff Dyer

This essay was first published in Martins’ The Time Machine, a project developed in hydropower stations in Portugal. In typical anglophonic humour, Dyer analysis how the spaces depicted in Martins’ work aren’t just about the generation but also of dreams and technological utopias.

english / portuguese /
essay /

The space and time of machines, by João Pinharanda

This essay was first published in the catalogue of Martins’ exhibition ‘The Time Machine’ at MAAT, Lisbon. Pinharanda analises Martins’ work in the context of the failure of the Modernist project and how it led to the desertification of the industrial landscape.

english / portuguese /
essay /

The oscillating image, by Sérgio Mah

This essay was first published in the catalogue of Martins’ exhibition The Wayward Line, at the Centre Culturel Calouste Gulbenkian, Paris. Mah’s essay analises Martins’ fictional and real topographies and how they reflect on the place of the photographic.

english / portuguese / french /
essay /

This is not a house, by Peter D. Osborne

This essay was first published in the catalogue of Martins’ exhibition The Wayward Line, at the Centre Culturel Calouste Gulbenkian, Paris. Osborne examines the importance of fiction in the depiction of the ruins of the 2008 US housing market.

english / portuguese / french /
essay /

An aesthetic of vagueness, by Jacinto Lageira

This essay was first published in the catalogue of Martins’ exhibition The Wayward Line, at the Centre Culturel Calouste Gulbenkian, Paris. Lageira discusses the concept of vagueness in relation to Martins reductive images.

english / french /
essay /

Under construction, by Sacha Cradock

This essay was first published in Martins’ This is not a House. Cradock analises Martins’ poignant commentary on the financial ruin and bankruptcy that followed the 2008 economic crisis and his use of fiction, from an art-history perspective.

english /
essay /

Quando a luz esconde as sombras, by Margarida Medeiros

This essay was produced to accompany Edgar Martins’ exhibition When Light Casts no Shadow at Porta33, Funchal. Medeiros’ poetic essay explores Martins’ reductionist aesthetics, use of fiction and darkness to explore the limits of perception.

portuguese /
essay /

Black minutes of memorial snow, by Cyrus Shahrad

This essay was commissioned in the context of a collaboration between QUART magazine & Edgar Martins. It tells the tale of a family’s dystopian trip to the mountains of Innsbruck, Austria.

english /
essay /

How do I know what I know until I see what I see, interview by Gerry Badger

This wide-ranging interview was first published in Martins’ When Light Casts no Shadow. Badger and Martins discuss his practice, project, and his recurrent use of fiction and low light in his work.

english / portuguese /
essay /

Topologies of place, by John Beardsley

This essay was first published in Martins’ Topologies. Badger analises in detail the different bodies of work published in this book and contextualises them from an art-history perspective.

english /
essay /

In conversation, interview by David Campany

This wide ranging interview was first published in Martins’ Topologies. Campany and Martins discuss his practice, projects, photography, theory and the use of long exposures and the exploration of darkness in his work.

/
essay /

The accidental theorist, by Peter D. Osborne

This essay was first published in Martins’ The Diminishing Present. Osborne’s responds to Martins’ project and proposes his own photographic poetics of space.

english /