Herald Café: Are
you acquainted
with Goan short story writing,
considering
that your chose to do your project ‘Goans’ based on these
writings?
Nuno
de
Campos:
After
being invited to submit a proposal for the exhibition
‘Morphology of Archives’ at MOG,
I started
my
research by reading a wonderful book of travel stories edited by
Manohar
Shetty
‘Goa Travels’.
Searching for more books by Mr Shetty, I found and read in a couple
of days the compilation of short stories, ‘Ferry
Crossing’.
These two books offered a stark and fascinating contrast between the
accounts of foreigners and the literary portraits of Goans by writers
from
Goa. From there, I read all the fiction related to Goa that I
could
find from New York, where I live. Sadly, I never had the chance
to
travel to Goa, but intend to visit as soon as possible.
HC:
How easy has it been illustrating these writings?
NDC:
During
the course of my research, I struggled with the position in which, as
a Portuguese man, I inevitably found myself. The long and fraught
history of Portuguese presence in Goa became both a hurdle, and the
very reason why my work could connect to an audience in Goa. At some
point, it became clear that focusing on the distant past and in
history, specially as it is told by westerners, would only magnify
this obstacle. By working with the short stories as my starting
point, I could look for remnants of that past in contemporary
accounts, and think about its meaning in the present.
HC:
What
informs your drawing process. Did you collaborate with the
writers?
NDC:
I
did not collaborate with the writers beyond the reading of the text.
I looked at a lot of images and tried to have a very basic knowledge
of the settings and garments. The illustrations are a personal
interpretation of the stories. They reflect my understanding of the
characters, which is likely incomplete, and also my personal
connection with their feelings and experiences. For
example, the characters Pedro (Armando Menezes
‘The
Forsaken Son’)
and António (Nisha da Cunha ‘Home’)
represent the two halves of any person who had to leave home. The
emotions that define them are familiar to me,
as I have myself
lived away from home for 20 years now. They are also recurring themes
in Portuguese culture, as Portugal is historically a place from where
many people had, and still have to depart. There is a personal and a
cultural connection to the characters, and all that informs the
drawing process.
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The
illustrations are an attempt to connect from a a very long distance.
Each
drawing represents one or more characters from one story and is
titled after a short sentence extracted from the text.
I would like to thank Subodh
Kerkar, Lina Vincent and Sabitha TP for this wonderful opportunity. I
also wanted to thank the writers and editors for their inspiring
work.
HC: What
are the other themes that have influenced your compilation?
NDC:
I was very interested in stories that convey traces of Goan
colonialism, gender identity, families and love via an exploration of
Hindu Catholic relations, class and the diaspora.
