Pedro Letria ‘Maskirovka’


Exhibition by Pedro Letria from 14th to 29th October.



From the Russian, Maskirovka means dissimulation, deception or the manipulation of the obvious to deceive what we think we know. This project, which consists of 25 colour photographs and a 17-minute colour film, investigates the mechanisms by which we construct meaning from what we see in relation to what we know. In particular, it questions the articulation of the photographic image (and what it constructs from the experienced fact) with the language of cinema and the staging of a factual text. How does what we see and hear participate in the understanding of things? What is it that the word, free from the constraints of the photographic process, allows us to imagine and how does its reading competes with what happens in a photograph? What is the link between the likelihood inherent in the photographic document and the suspension of disbelief required by fiction? The film stars Diogo Dória and João Pedro Bénard. Maskirovka also has a critical text written by Emília Tavares entitled Truth or Consequence? The fable of the images.

Support: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation