eu não costumava pensar alludes to a common body in limbo, in the expression of thought, (self)knowledge and personal (de)construction.
In a temporal exercise of photographing people in silence for an hour, I look for a pattern of inner reflection. From the first moment of tension, to alienation and resignation in the face of the imposed hiatus. The gaze changes, the restless body wanders, attention is scattered. Calm eventually takes hold, the notion of time is lost and people merge with the space. In a world that demands immediacy, slowness becomes a political gesture. Here, the pause is the place where thought flourishes.
‘Where are we when we think?’ asks Hannah Arendt. Thinking is inhabiting an inner space, intimate and sometimes inhospitable, where we become simultaneously presence and absence. In bare duration, that time delimited between the exterior and the intimate, between the surface and the depth, suspension hangs.
The purpose of eu não costumava pensar is to capture the invisible in us, the moment when we embark on a journey into our subconscious. In this common portrait emerges an opportunity for self-knowledge, setting off on a journey through states of mind.