MNEMOTÉCNICAS - Additional text by João Rocha

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As luck would have it, today I bumped into Simonides of Ceos on the streets of Athens. The poet, renowned in the ancient Greece, was coming up the hill towards the Casa do Brasil. I reached him as he caught his breath on a corner. He had also been invited to the opening of the exhibition Mnemotécnicas by artist Nicole Kouts. We accompanied each other along the way, taking the opportunity to catch up. Apart from having passed away, he was doing well. The fortuitous encounter brought to light the parallel between the exhibition and the banquet hall in which Simonides first discovered for himself the mnemotechniques that now title it. Real interface of a virtual space in which the artist, like the poet, sifts through the rubble in an attempt to identify what was lost amidst the raised dust. Like him, it is images that she resorts to. In Mnemotécnicas, Nicole Kouts turns the Casa do Brasil exhibition space into the materialization of a palace of memories hers and others through the works contained therein. Amidst the ruins of the banquet hall, there is no longer fear of collapse, the roof has already toppled down. Arriving at the entrance door, however, it did not go unnoticed by me that even the ghost of Simonides of Ceos was looking up apprehensively. For those who, like me, enter the space equipped with the natural caution of those who suffer from a corporeal constitution, the only recommendation left is that they come equipped with their own helmets. Mine only fits one. And that they keep their gaze steady to the path that the artist maps out, not outwards, but inwards, as it should be.

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MNEMOTÉCNICAS - Presentation text by Nicole Kouts

 

The Embassy of Brazil in Greece presents “Mnemotécnicas”, a solo exhibition by artist Nicole Kouts at the Casa do Brasil in Athens. The exhibition covers a selection of works in video, collage, embroidery and photography, produced between São Paulo and Athens over eight years and based on her autobiographical visual repertoire as Brazilian and a granddaughter of Greek immigrants. Her work involves analog and digital techniques that drive intersections between image, time and memory through image editing, collection building, word games and performative gestures. The transits between Brazil, Greece and the Internet are the source of her repository of real and fictional images, highlighting objects, photographs, sounds, stories and traditions. By shuffling and reorganizing these materials, Kouts explores her perspective as part of a generation that grew up in parallel with the rise of digital technologies, elaborating on issues intrinsic to communication in a world mediated by screens and devices. Mnemotechniques are resources for the memorization of information, invented in Ancient Greece with the intention of expanding the ability to retain associations and remember ideas using artificial methods. In this exhibition, Nicole Kouts proposes connections between her works and mnemonic techniques, weaving non-chronological lines to perceive and navigate time. 

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