Filipa Faustino

I spend my days between two worlds.

In one of them I hold time in my hands: archaeological finds such as lithics, ceramics and metals, and on the other hand the bones of our ancestors. I am an archaeologist and bioanthropologist, and my work is to read what remains of people who lived thousands of years ago. What they ate, what they fell ill with, who buried them and with what care. You learn quickly that the sacred is no recent invention. It is in the oldest graves we know, in the position of a body laid on its side, in a necklace bead someone decided to leave with the one who was departing.

In the other, I draw. I make unique pieces for one person alone, and I accompany that person for months while the work takes shape and afterwards. I have been doing this for nineteen years, and along the way more than twenty-one thousand people have passed through.

For a long time I thought I had to choose between the two. Today I know they are the same question asked from two sides. Archaeology asks how human beings related to what is greater than them. The rest of my work asks how you relate to it now.

I apply here what I bring from the field of research: method, patience, and a healthy distrust of easy answers. I do not make diagnoses and I do not promise miracles. I will look closely, work with rigour, and tell you the truth about what I see.

This is what you find on the other side of a session, a course or a work of art.