Geography of affections: tales of identity, diaspora and travel in the work of Monica de Miranda

My research has been a critical analysis, developed from the perspective of my own artistic interventions, dialogue and debate, gained through my practice as an artist. As part of my investigation, I have developed a series of artworks utilising video and photography. The work deals with issues of migration, family, home, place, identity and travel in connection to my own biography. I have undertaken four research field trips to Brazil, London, Angola, Cape Verde and Portugal. In order to create my practical research work, I participated in programmes of residencies with galleries and foundations in those countries and I have also worked with my own family network. I have been analyzing theoretical issues related to auto-biography and identity in relation to alterity, diaspora, and hybridity within contemporary post colonial art practices. I have examined theories raised by my artwork in relation to notions of travel and migration and to psychoanalytical theory , film studies, feminist postcolonial theory and psycho- geography, I connected these notions to concepts of post-modern theories. Subsequently I have been examining models of the artist as a producer, researcher, traveller, and self-ethnographer. The work that I have developed for this research are: An Ocean Between Us (2012) a short video work and some photographs connect to this work; a series of photographs entitled Erosion (2013) and the main installation piece of the research, Once Upon a Time (2012), a tryptic video. I presented the work I have been producing for my practice-based research in three exhibitions in Lisbon, Portugal in October and November 2012 respectively in Carpe Diem and Plataforma Revolver, and in January 2013 at the gallery Appleton square.