Magical Realism

On the occasion of the MAGRITTE exhibition, the SCHIRN invites international Instagrammers to get inspired by Magritte and his surreal worlds. The series continues with the Portugal-based Photographer Manuel Pita, who combines his artistic and his scientific side on his Instagram account @Sejkko (Japanese for ‘sincere child‘ or ‘force of truth‘).

What do you want to tell us with your images?

I grew up by the Caribbean Sea, reading all the Latin American literature on Magical Realism. Clearly this shaped my perception a lot, as well as my imagination. Indeed the kind of art that I do can be easily classified as visual magical realism. For me it is important that my images convey ordinary settings, and ordinary events, but with a little something extra that pushes some boundaries into the realms of the magical, almost supernatural. Perhaps a huge driver of this approach is my scientific side (I am a scientist with a PhD in Artificial Intelligence). I am a big fan of evolution and for me evolutionary leaps have a magical character.

What inspires your images?

My artistic work is largely inspired by natural evolution, existential questions, nature, the nature of light, human tradition, more recently technology, and human anxieties coupled with technology.

For you, what is so topical about René Magritte's work?

For me Magritte represents elevating the radio frequencies of imagination to the height of clouds. This does not only make me dream, but also allows me to see an otherwise serious reality as something less transcendental. Magritte also makes me think about identity, and how the hooks I have to my own version of it are mutable yet remain somehow coherent. Finally Magritte reminds me about how meaningful it is on a deeply personal experience of life to remain defiantly authentic.