FIS International Solo Festival is an intimate and multidisciplinary event held in Póvoa de Varzim (north of Portugal), bringing together distinct solo performing art projects and artists (Circus, Dance, Music, Theatre, and everything in between) to a closer relationship with the audience.
The festival has a unique approach when dealing with the visual identity of each edition. Instead of inviting a designer or studio to develop the visual identity of the festival throughout several editions, FIS treats the visual identity as one of the solo shows and always invites a different artist or designer to develop that edition’s identity.
For its 7th edition (2022), FIS invited Estaminé Studio (André Santos) to bring its own style and papercraft mastery into that edition’s visual identity. To achieve what he had in mind, André Santos invited Nuno Leites to help him with studio photography and video. The briefing was extremely open and free, with only two simple guidelines: the use of the geometric shape “circle” and a color palette that would include black, white and a specific yellow. Besides that, we could explore everything with any technique and style.
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Paper was used as the main element of all the compositions and treated as the physical and flexible material that it is. To be as free and flexible as possible, it was decided that the camera would always be fixed and set to its maximum aperture, and the paper would be manipulated to create all the compositions to get photographed.
This relationship between the camera and the paper got even more interesting when other elements were added to the mix: depth of field and blurring, paper texture, colors, printed photography, a great amount of exploration, and trial and error.
© Teresa Santos
2022
Creative and Art Direction: Estaminé Studio
Photography and Motion Design: Nuno Leites
Paperwork and Graphic Design: Estaminé Studio
Soundtrack: Dídac Gilabert
Special thanks to Inês Simões Pereira and Pedro Morim for the precious help
