Edgar Martins | Siloquies and Soliloquies on Death, Life and Other Interludes

Edgar Martins' exhibition at EDP Foundation was produced in collaboration with the National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences (INMLCF) in Portugal and supported by The Arts Council, England, this project proposes to scrutinise and hold in tension many of the contradictions and problems inherent in the conceptualisation, definition and depiction of death. These intentions collide, overlap and blur in Martins' images, revealing the fragility of our perceptual and cognitive systems.

'By productively linking documental and factual records (pertaining to real cases and meeting the scientific and operational requirements of the INMLCF) with images that seek to explore their speculative and fictional potential', argues exhibition curator Sérgio Mah, 'Siloquies and Soliloquies on Death, Life and Other Interludes' seeks to expose the decisive but deeply paradoxical role that photography – with its epistemological, aesthetic and ethical implications – has played in the perception and intelligibility of violent death.'

This work marks a significant transition in Edgar Martins’ creative trajectory, including a broader, more diversified body of visual processes and types – photographs, appropriations, projections, installation, text – signalling the artist’s growing inclination towards a broader, more hybrid perspective of the practice of photography and the experience of images. 

A book of this work will be published on the 20th September to coincide with the launch of Edgar Martins' exhibition at Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art (Lisbon).

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Edgar Martins was born in 1977 in Évora, Portugal, but grew up in Macau. In 1996 he moved to the UK, where he completed a BA in Photography at the London College of Printing & Distributive Trades, as well as an MA in Photography and Fine Art at the Royal College of Arts (London).

Martins work is represented internationally in several high-profile collections, such as those of the V&A (London), the National Media Museum (Bradford, UK),  RIBA (London), the Dallas Museum of Art (USA); Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (Lisbon), Fundação EDP (Lisbon), Fondation Carmignac (Paris), among others. His first book - Black Holes & Other Inconsistencies - was awarded the Thames & Hudson and RCA Society Book Art Price. A selection of images from this book was also awarded the Jerwood Photography Award in 2003.

In 2010 the Centre Culturel Calouste Gulbenkian (Paris) hosted Edgar Martins' first retrospective exhibition. In 2014 The Calouste Foundation/Modern Art Centre hosted the official launch The Rehearsal of Space & The Poetic Impossibility to Manage the infinite, a project developed in partnership with The European Space Agency. Edgar Martins was the recipient of the inaugural New York Photography Award (Fine Art category) in May 2008. In 2009 he was also awarded the prestigious BES Photo Prize (Portugal), as well as a SONY World Photography Award (Landscape category). In 2010 Edgar Martins was nominated for the Prix Pictet 2009 and awarded 1st prize in Fine Art - Abstract category of the 2010 International Photography Awards. Martins was selected to represent Macau (China) at the 54th Venice Biennale, in 2011.