Lisboa, Mouraria,

11.02.16, 21.00h

Alex is a nomadic soul.

Already in his mother's belly he traveled from Venezuela to Madrid (Spain) were he was born.

He has always had a strong relationship with abandoned spaces and houses, starting to participate with 18 years in the squatter movement, to oppose habitation to abandon and speculation.

To enter a house with a previous story clears the claim to possession and it’s an exercise of cohabitation within the space and its past marks;

Before moving to Portugal, he travels for 11 months around India, trying to experience how it could be living without the need of a fixed House, carrying few things…as a snail.

When I got to know him in Lisbon, Alex was living in a house full of creativity.

He says that living in this house still meant being part of the “System” for the way it was organized and for how it functioned.

In it 6 persons (for the most artists and creative people), each with a private space, were sharing kitchen, toilets and living-rooms…and many moments of collective life.

He can remember the double bass, the trumpet and the piano sound of musicians living there…the sounds of the tea boiling, voices melting in conversations among friends…

I ask Alex what is the difference between living in a collectivity squatting or paying rent;

for him the difference is to be or not inside a mechanism that produces what he defines as a “social overflow”.

An Overflow is a disequilibrium in which some people have no house and others have more then one, so that they can permit themselves to leave some of their properties empty and falling apart.

In his experiences, it is inside the reality of occupied houses that he shared the most intense personal relations.

He remembers the sounds of Laboratorio, an occupied space in Lavapies in Madrid: the sound of the birds, of parties, of eviction day, when the police come and people were protesting to support the existence of the house.

Alex refers to a special sound typical of abandoned spaces…where the sound of your own body and steps have a special quality.

"The Jungle” is another interesting space Alex discovered in Mouraria district in Lisbon, and where he decided to live:

part of the garden of the “Palacio da Rosa” on the foot of the hill, many trees and a small house (once occupied by a woman, then abandoned) gained with Alex a new life.

Here he discovers and observes how the time spent can change the landscape…how steps bend grasses and plants creating a path…how nature in human absence reconquers its own space…

How the presence can influence the quality of the landscape…

Besides being Alex’s house The Jungle was a space open to people: concerts (a special one sounding washing machines and vinyls), Experimental Events organized with CEM, moments of art and sharing...until the moment the police come taking Alex's things away, destroying the small house, and closing the space, securing it with broken glass spread on the surrounding walls.

Alex managed to come back once more to his Jungle, sleeping on a coach in the middle of the trees;discovering how unpredictably and surprisingly a person can feel comfortable in unexpected places...

…a new kind of nomadism started.

…Alex spent some time living inside a fig tree with his hanging mat, having contact with drug addicts sleeping around the same space…they where addicted to drug… Alex to filming…

…exploring limits in life and art…and trying to feel and understand…how does the mechanism work…

...what happens when a person deviates from the main road…how hard is it not to get lost, wishing to live something different than the institutional social/economical flow…

At the moment Alex is developing “Raizes Nomadas” a project aiming to live in nature in accordance with its ecosystems, in symbiosis with its breathing…

Here he enjoys the vast space, no electricity, fires to create light, a new kind of body…

In the city, straight lines, a lot of information stacked and calling from every corner, and almost no time for staying and sharing…

…the difference between a fire and a television…

In the city, he says, information pushes him, with more tension…the rhythm is unstable, and the cadence is similar to the one of an irritated bell.

In the countryside he is experiencing a deeper freedom, that permits him to follow his own rhythm and to create while listening to the power of nature.

His place is called Coco and is located in Estremadura, in Spain…there are cranes singing and frogs give real concerts…while the sound of fire and wind crosses the sounds of people living in the space.

Here Alex is learning a new kind of nomadism: how in stillness to receive other people’s nomadism, energies, seeds…

And Security?

Security is not to need security.

To feel secure with yourself and in the garden you create with other people…trying to put more gardens in communication…

Security in your own intention and existence.

Feeling home is to feel welcomed by the space and the people, to feel as a new plant participating in the garden of a visited House or city…

Looking at a tree Alex feels at home, feeling its breathing, its growing rooted in the ground, its moving roots, the strong trunk giving stability to the branches spreading in the air to contain the flying life of birds helping pollination in new lands…

Now when he visits a city and he enters a house, Alex automatically tries to go outside…opening a window…going on the terrace…

Freedom???

Freedom exists in the moment one feels nourished by what he/she needs.

Freedom is to live in the moment without expectations or projections;

to stay rooted…flying.

Freedom is a choice, a growing, a movement, a listening, the capacity of respecting…

Freedom Alex says, is connected to art…art that gives to the people a rich possibility to walk, questioning and criticizing…as we are never completely free…better to keep alert, wondering and escaping the big Truths…even about Freedom…

I ask Alex to recall an unforgettable moment from one of his trips…he remembers a valley he explored in the north of India by bike…how beautiful had been the long trip back, dissolving in the flowing of the wind, in the flowing of the river.

...to listen is to imagine...

Thank you Alex for being part of this process and to awake, with your stories, my imagination and wish to explore!

Good listening!

SPACE :

This interview recording took place sitting next to an open window, on the third floor of a flat in the middle of Mouraria at the beginning of the night.

For this reason, due to the little traffic and few commercial establishments in the street, the voice is surrounded by silence.