ITW: INES NETO DOS SANTOS

Inês Neto dos Santos is a multidisciplinary artist, born in Lisbon and based in London/Brussels. She completed an MA in Visual Communication at the Royal College of Art in 2016. Her practice moves between performance, installation, and social sculpture, investigating the socio-political implications of what and how we eat. In her work, she creates contexts and frameworks to explore collaboration, generosity, and care. Recently, she has delved into the practical and metaphorical dimensions of fermentation, as a gateway into our enmeshed, multispecies existence.

WHAT IS YOUR ART PRACTICE?

My art practice is very rooted in food and its wider implications, I am interested in cultivating a deep awareness of our relationships to our surroundings through what we eat and how we come to eat it. I like to think of my work as deeply collaborative, working together with humans and non-humans in what I hope are reciprocal ways.

HOW IS YOUR WORK LINKED TO ECOFEMINISM?

I am interested in deepening awareness of our ecologies (environmental, emotional, physical – they all intertwine!), across the human and non-human. Ecofeminism allows for a wider view on these matters, a helpful lens through which our current condition can be viewed.

WHAT MESSAGE DO YOU WANT TO CONVEY?

Everything is connected and food is everywhere! Nature is abundant – scarcity is a capitalist myth. We are more a part of our environment than we think…whatever boundaries we see between ‘outside’ and ‘inside’ are a product of social constructs.

WHAT IS YOUR NEXT PROJECT?

I am currently undergoing a deep dive into the agricultural, nutritional, and cultural properties of beans and legumes – right now, I am in Lisbon working on a film with friend and filmmaker Bella Riza, exploring the metaphorical and poetic dimensions of beans, through recipes, ways of growing, harvesting and taking care of these plants. The film is due to come out in November, with support from LOOPBarcelona.