"When I was invited to respond to (the curatorial premise of) This side or that side, or almost. Standing by and to think what it can mean to operate in public spaces where and when the law is unclear, murky and even ambiguous, I have directly thought about my sense of being a migrant artist and my relationships with time, language, space and (be)longing. As an artist, in general, the sense of waiting for the promises of living out of my career was often imminent. Now, adding the state of being a migrant, the temporary nature of my non-resident status makes me feel even more the sense of temporariness and out-of-scale perspective of waiting for the stability of a home that might never come (back).
The weight of time and the constant re-arrangement of (be)longing(s) made me pay attention on what I hold that is actually private to me, when even the house I dwell in is much of a public space in where my sense of agency and settlement is constantly challenged by the fear of being fined (by the landlord, by the immigration office, by the owners of the place). How much of my body can affect/occupy the space for it to be considered “mine”? Trying to test the boundaries of my (un)homed time, I got hold of the only thing I do own in this country: my chair.
Tenho cadeira, não tenho cadeira is a video-performance to spend time with my chair in the surroundings of my neighbourhood in Maungarei (Mt Wellington) in Aotearoa (New Zealand)."
—Janaína Moraes
