BOUNDEDNESS

It is with great enthusiasm that we welcome you to the 2nd issue of SOPA Magazine!

Strange times indeed, where limits and boundaries are defined and reconfigured at every moment, often with a unexpected twist or with a seemingly arbitrary purpose. This last year and a half generated incredulity, a sense of feeling out of place, of eagerness to escape anywhere at anytime. Reality, as complex and unexpected as it usually is, seems to have really gone astray and we, humans, as biological creatures, facing the most basic threats to our own existence through a virus and its several mutations.

Such limits and boundaries, concepts closely related to confinement, didn’t offer us the needed response for what we were looking for. And so we dug deeper, arriving at SOPA’s second issue theme “Boundedness”. It is a feature, or a word, that is able to grasp those multiple referential limits - or their absence - in space, time and our minds. What is bounded and what is not? Does it depend on personal will, political actions and determinants, the development of science and technology, physics, humans and nature or humans as nature, or is it in the end mere linguistics? Our bodies and, consequentially, our minds, have been dealing with issues that challenge our very own perception of what is bounded or not and it will remain so for decades to come. We hope you enjoy the essays we managed to gather here at SOPA. Thank you for supporting us!

We start this issue with the Minimal Republics by Ruben Martin de Lucas, an essay that deals with an apparently simple theme as simples as borders, that allows to engage in a far more complex and wide discussion on how throughout history humans have been building them, maybe as a sort of self-reassurance for what is the “I”, the “we” and how, in the end, our own behavior is defined by them. This work is followed by Tiago Casanova’s "Which way the wind blows”, with the Mediterranean region as its main character. Of extreme importance throughout the centuries, it is a work that deals with mythologies, history, interwoven cultures and movement of people, economic exchanges and the inherent contradictions of a geographical site which is so heavily charged in our times. In that sense, following the centrality of the Mediterranean in the current state of geopolitical affairs, we present Alessia Rollo’s Fata Morgana. A direct witness in her native Italy to the troubling and shocking impacts of European Union policies that prevent the safe arrival of refugee’s fleeing from their home countries, but also from the visual depiction of what is commonly - and wrongly - addressed as “the migrant crisis”, Alessia decided to literally and metaphorically represent such a relevant issue. Located between reality and fiction, it is a moving work that pushes the boundaries, the thoughts, and the imagery on one of the most serious matters of our time rejecting stereotypes and other shocking visual depictions.

Land and water followed by air. We could almost talk about the four elements, as the next work, by Pedro Guimarães, is all about the human will and spirit to learn how to fly, to defy the physical laws that control our lives, and the necessary conditions to meet that possibility. Pedro gives us a quiet view on humans, birds and, of course, machines, all of them with one wish or purpose. The emotional and metaphorical dimensions of “flying”, something that is far from being human nature.

In fact, what is Human Nature? This is exactly the title of the work of the following artist, Lucas Foglia. The photographer questions the limits, or boundaries, between human and nature, a dichotomy created in modernity that remains quite strong until today. When have we come to consider ourselves out of it, rather than nature itself, particularly considering the impacts on the world from which we are part of? This work reveals several individuals and initiatives who question this very notion throughout the world.

We end this issue with one very simple question that Elisa Mirallés’ work makes us address: what does it mean to be human? What are the limits to science and technology when it comes to mimic the human body and soul? How can the natural body be improved through all sorts of interventions, often due to social or cultural pressure? What consequences are we still yet to see in our daily lives when articulating such faraway yet so close realities?

We hope you enjoy our second SOPA!