Da Imagem Ausente ( Of the Absent Image) is the first solo exhibition by Ludgero Almeida at Rampa.
The building where Rampa operates, as well as the massive construction that sits on the following block known as "Palácio do Comércio", materialized in the mid 1940s a substancial real estate investment by the company Ferreira e Filhos Lda.
It was from Riba de Ave, some 50 miles North, that its owner Delfim Ferreira built an industrial and financial empire, based primarily in the cotton textile industry, that took him to the throne of richest man in Portugal and permanent resident os the Serralves palace. In the underground warehouse now occupied by Rampa toiled the carpenters, metal workers and masons who maintained this group of buildings.
The history of the space - punctuated by the myth of Delfim Ferreira and by the erasure of the many who effectively built it - echoes the topic of this exhibition by Ludgero Almeida, himself born and raised in the industrial region of the Ave valley.
In "Da Imagem Ausente" the artist analyses the processes through which the region's historic narrative is constructed, questioning the mythologies that glorify its fake prosperity, blind to the bleak living conditions of most of his fellow citizens.
The creative process undertaken by Ludgero Almeida develops as he roams through the territory collecting and registering the signs from the history that is yet to be told. "Da Imagem Ausente" confronts the viewer with a storyboard that has been re-drawn, exposing the subjectivity of all major historic narratives.