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Vinicius Ferreira is a visual artist who explores the underlying themes of contemporary society through various visual media: photography, film, installations, video art, and performance art. He currently uses technology and natural elements in his work, as seen in the audiovisual performance Rizoma and the installation Linha de Erosão, which will be featured at the 16th Curitiba International Biennial. It does not escape, indeed, in each portrait, the brutal toil questioning the low-price commodity, an ancestral time of telling, a dark skin that shines and warns: we are fighting. In the Yoruba language of the Gulf of Guinea, Oriki carries vast meanings, such as affection, name, chant, poem, or something offered to someone else. Here, the term reappears as a new voice of outflow. It is offered, therefore, a journey to discomfort, inside a multiple and infinite Brazil. 
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Vinicius Ferreira is a visual artist who explores the underlying themes of contemporary society through various visual media.

ORIKI

Vinicius Ferreira For Slimi 6 Copy

<div>Ed Dingli is a visual artist working across painting, illustration, graphic design, printmaking, and large-scale murals, with a practice rooted in community and collaboration. Originally from the island of Malta, Ed moved to the UK to study graphic communication at the University for the Creative Arts, where he culminated his studies with a thesis on social responsibility and ethics, which went on to shape his path over the next few years. He worked as a senior designer at London-based ethical studio Nice and Serious, before moving to Portugal with the aim of spending more time in nature and developing his practice as an independent artist. Ed now works from his studio in Lisbon, with a style that is in constant development as he seeks to create work that is empathetic, conscientious, and playful. 
What moment or realization made you take your work seriously as an artist? Over time I’ve understood that my work is not something separate from my life; it’s the thread connecting everything - the art of living. As an artist in any form, you develop a ‘sixth sense’, that of always being on the lookout for inspiration, be it from a small interaction with a stranger, an observation while out on a walk, a hand-written receipt from a fruit vendor, the neat typography on apartment door-bells. Rick Rubin says “We tend to think of the artist’s work as the output. The artist’s real work is a way of being in the world.” It’s the way we move through life, it exists in everyday gestures, interactions, decisions. And then there’s also a reminder to myself to not take everything too seriously - creativity becomes less about producing “art objects” and more about cultivating awareness and presence in everyday life. Your visuals carry a strong identity. How do you keep your work evolving without losing that signature? This is an interesting one. When I first started out as an illustrator, I was obsessed with the question of ‘what’s my style’. Eventually I realised that this is not something you choose, it’s something that develops over time, and hopefully keeps on evolving as I keep reinventing myself. What interests me more is the underlying language of the work.That language is shaped by certain values and ongoing questions: how we relate to the realities that we move through every day. The visuals become a way of reflecting and processing my own experience of the world. As I change, the work changes too. New conversations, environments, collaborations and experiences are reflected in the way I see and respond to things.
How do you decide when an idea is worth turning into a finished piece? Like any other creative person, there are hundreds of fleeting ideas that pass through my mind on a regular basis - little observations, phrases, images or feelings. Some get quickly written on a scrap piece of paper or in my sketchbook, or typed into the notes app on my phone while out on a walk. Most of them never end up seeing the light of day.
Whether they end up turning into a finished piece is more about timing. Sometimes an idea gets left sitting on the shelf while I’m preoccupied with other projects. Other times, I feel an urgency to follow it before the feeling disappears. I’m trying to get better at trusting those moments and allowing myself to fully run with an idea while it still feels alive, before it becomes overthought or lost entirely.
Usually the ideas worth pursuing are the ones that continue to return to me emotionally. They linger in the background and slowly gather meaning over time. Often they emerge in response to something I’ve seen, heard or experienced, and creating the work becomes a way of processing or translating that feeling into something tangible. There’s a kind of catharsis in that - a release, a processing, an attempt to understand something more deeply through the act of creating.
What role does intuition play in your work versus planning or structure? When I first moved more seriously into painting and expressive work, I almost felt the need to unlearn some of the principles of my graphic design training. I wanted to let go of overthinking and allow space for play, spontaneity and emotion to lead the process instead. Over time though, I realised that my design background wasn’t something I needed to escape from, but something that could strengthen the work. Structure can actually be incredibly freeing. Now I think of the process as a balance between the two. I often begin with a loose framework or intention, but I try not to become too rigid or attached to the original idea. Some of the most meaningful moments happen when the work starts resisting the plan and asks to become something else. I’ve learned that the challenge is not choosing between intuition and structure, but allowing them to coexist, giving myself enough grounding to hold the work together, while still leaving room for surprise, emotion and play. How do you want people to feel or react when they encounter your work for the first time? I guess I hope to create a moment of pause and reflection. I want the work to feel relatable in some way - that there’s something within it that people can connect to through their own lives or experiences. Maybe it reflects a thought or feeling they’ve had themselves, maybe it’s something humorous or quietly familiar, or maybe it’s simply an ordinary everyday scene that causes them to look at similar moments differently the next time they encounter them. I think there’s something powerful in making space for those quieter moments and allowing people to recognise themselves within them. If the work lingers with someone afterwards, even subtly, then I feel it has done something meaningful.
Have collaborations or conversations with others shaped your perspective as an artist? In what way? Absolutely. I love collaborating with people from different backgrounds and disciplines because everyone approaches the world in completely different ways. I think those experiences have made me realise just how differently we all move through life. Every person carries their own ways of seeing and understanding the world, and I find that fascinating. Even the most ordinary conversation can completely shift the way you think about something. I genuinely love talking to people: older people, children, people from completely different backgrounds to my own. I think there’s so much wisdom and insight to be found outside of our own circles and echo chambers. Most of the flow that you will have while making art will come from all the things that you do when you are not making art.
In a fast-moving visual culture, how do you stay authentic and avoid repetition? I try to stay authentic to my own voice, my own thoughts and expressions, related to my daily experiences and my own values. One of the books I keep going back to is Scott Peck’s ‘The Road Less Travelled’. In it, he says ‘Only a relative and fortunate few continue until the moment of death exploring the mystery of reality, ever enlarging and refining and redefining their understanding of the world and what is true.’ As the world becomes ever-increasingly fast-moving, I try to slow down, to rush slowly - always refining and redefining the way I understand the world, absorbing and then expressing my own lessons as best as I can. 
If your work could exist beyond images into another medium or form what would it become and why? I think if my work were to move beyond images, it would naturally gravitate towards anthropology or ethnographic forms of storytelling. I’m deeply interested in the ways people construct meaning through rituals, memories, language. What draws me to anthropology is its attentiveness - the act of spending time with people, listening carefully, and understanding culture through lived experience. I think that approach resonates strongly with the way I make work. In another form, I could imagine the work becoming more research-based or participatory. What interests me most is the idea of creating work that documents not only how people live, but how they feel, remember and relate to one another. In that sense, art and anthropology feel closely connected to me: both are ways of observing the world carefully and trying to understand our place within it. Interview by Sleiman Dayaa 
 
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Ed Dingli is a visual artist working across painting, illustration, graphic design, printmaking, and large-scale murals, with a practice rooted in community and collaboration

Ed Dingli

<div>Oscillating between Provence and Lisbon, Florence grew up in the South of France and has her warmth infusing her work. She trained for two years in painting and drawing in Florence, Italy, then continued with a trimester at the Royal Drawing School in London. She has recently been gaining recognition with the BTA First Prize, the Jacksons Longlist, and a feature in Faire magazine. Several exhibitions are up- coming for summer 2026 in Provence, as well as a residency in Malta. In her studio in Lisbon, there is a profusion of local scenes and French delights. Florence aims to depict intimate scenes of daily life and honor places and crafts falling into oblivion. Your work carries a distinct emotional atmosphere. How do you translate internal states into visual form? When creating a body of work, I choose to paint places that have touched me and depict scenes that have resonated with me. I strive to represent on canvas feelings of comfort, home, or a specific time of day, such as waking up in the morning. I also enjoy recreating some of my favorite activities like hunting for treasure at the flea market or choosing the perfect table at a café en terrasse. People often tell me they can imagine climbing into a painting, which is a great compliment, and that the scenes remind them of their childhood homes or favorite things to do.
There’s an intimacy in your compositions. What role does vulnerability play in your practice? I try to honour places and activities that are perhaps overlooked in our busy lives.These are spaces that are not usually displayed for viewing, yet in which we spent great swathes of our existence : an unmade bed, morning light on a bath tub, a sink we wash all our dishes in. You are peering into someone’s intimacy and private life, a vulnerable side of us which is usually hidden.This allows imagining yourself in the scene, a transportation towards something familiar yet foreign. How do you approach the balance between spontaneity and control when creating a piece? Creativity for me happens within a structure and routine. There are several stages to it, and I try and keep them as rigourous as possible to avoid wasting time and energy, as well as the meltdowns and spirals of self doubt. I try to get all the preparatory work done beforehand, prepping large numbers of canvases and boards, with a full arsenal of paint and brushes ready to go. I need a clear head and an unbroken empty amount of time to create calmly and get into a flow. The first rush of a painting happens quickly and is very enjoyable.Then follows figuring out the image, defining and organising it to match what I hoped to convey.The finishing is the part I have to be the most disciplined with myself for, it requires focus and will. Often I will come back to a piece later on and add a detail or change a small something.  As I paint in layers, the pieces need time to dry in between, which I use to refresh my eyes and clear my thoughts. Gathering inspiration and ideas is something I try and constantly be attuned to in my daily life, as well as setting out moments to wander aimlessly finding scenes that catch my eye. In your view, what is the relationship between the body, memory, and image in your work? One of my recurrent subjects are living spaces.There aren’t usually any bodies in them but it is implied one has just wafted out of the scene, leaving a smoking cup of tea, a still warm bed and a bubbling pot on the oven. I have a strong tie to nostalgia and disappearance, so memory is a primary component in my work. When I paint I feel I manage to freeze time in an image, and when looking at a painting even years and years later can teleport instantly to where and when it was done. It is a form of remembering intensely captured it on canvas, and gives it a strong recall power in my memory. I paint also to suspend the city against gentrification, to honour old shopfronts and sights which are being erased. Often there is a theatre in the theatre component where I make an image of a tile, a particularly beautiful sign or a pattern. 
Your palette and textures feel intentional yet instinctive, how do you develop your visual language over time? My visual language combines many different themes and patterns which circle back over time. I have become more attune to what I am attracted to and am curious to see certain motifs already appear in my work ten years ago. I suppose the one rule is to practise and produce constantly. That way you can hone in on what really interests you and positive response to pieces tends to happen the more authentic the pieces are.  I have certain colours like yellow, or patterns such as tiles, that feature again and again in my work and that I’ll always come back to, which form my visual identity.
Do you see your work as narrative, symbolic, or purely sensory  or something in between? My work aims to be a slice of life, and combines parts of all three. It is symbolic in its subject matter as I am nudging the viewer and saying look, this is important, However there is space left for the observer to create their own narrative, using their personal references and imagination.. who has just emptied this bed, what comforting meal is simmering in the background I hope to elicit memories and sensations while the onlooker plunges into a scene. How does your environment, both physical and emotional, shape the energy of your work? My surroundings are my main subject and so of uttermost importance. I am inspired by what is in front of me, and will be deflated and unstimulated in a sterile or monochrome situation. I often paint my mothers house, or my own, and both are filled with objects that end up in my paintings. My studio is also set up like a prolongation of my house, so I am continuously surrounded by items and images that spark my imagination, like a theatre’s prop house. These are all places I feel comfortable, loved and in my element, and I hope to translate that onto the canvas I have to be feeling good to paint, and try to avoid any mental turmoil. Even if the subject is very energetic like a market scene, or a kitchen, it feels exciting rather than draining if I am on form. Looking ahead, what new directions, mediums, or ideas are you interested in exploring? I am delighted to have two exhibitions coming up this summer in Provence The spaces are on a large scale and will allow me to present a broad kaleidoscope of subject matters, as well as being able to explore a variety of sizes, including some very large ones. In September I head to Malta for a residency and exhibition, and am eager to explore a new unknown terrain, excited for the unique island light! Next winter I hope to take on a project I have been contemplating for a few years and do a series of large scale nocturnal fishing scenes.  
 
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Oscillating between Provence and Lisbon, Florence grew up in the South of France and has her warmth infusing her work. She trained for two years in painting and drawing in Florence, Italy, then continued with a trimester at the Royal Drawing School in London.

Florence Champ

Image00186 Large

<div>Photographer: <a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.instagram.com%2Fshanesubanstudio%2F&t=ZTdiZWRkM2E4YmI0YmRmM2MxNjIwNmNlZGFkNzZhZDc3NTlhOWIzYix3VHA2RUFCNg%3D%3D&b=t%3Al1-urBJDmMy6XgAcZhGZfA&p=https%3A%2F%2Fworldwidefashion.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F179813418710%2Fmekhi-alante-lucky-for-slimi-november-2018-the&m=1&ts=1595795557" target="_blank">Shane Suban</a>&nbsp;
Editor: <a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.instagram.com%2Fslimi7%2F&t=YmIyN2IzN2IwN2RiM2VjZjU0OTM0NTQ1OGNjYWE4NGNkZjJmYzJmNyx3VHA2RUFCNg%3D%3D&b=t%3Al1-urBJDmMy6XgAcZhGZfA&p=https%3A%2F%2Fworldwidefashion.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F179813418710%2Fmekhi-alante-lucky-for-slimi-november-2018-the&m=1&ts=1595795557" target="_blank">Sleiman Dayaa</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
Creative Director: <a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.instagram.com%2Furivaldolopes%2F&t=YzA1Nzc2ZDNkM2RlZmVmZWY5YTUzZWRlYmM4N2RiMDYzMDdjNDdiZix3VHA2RUFCNg%3D%3D&b=t%3Al1-urBJDmMy6XgAcZhGZfA&p=https%3A%2F%2Fworldwidefashion.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F179813418710%2Fmekhi-alante-lucky-for-slimi-november-2018-the&m=1&ts=1595795557" target="_blank">Urivaldo Lopes</a>&nbsp;
Stylist: <a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.instagram.com%2Fjennyhaapala%2F&t=ZmFjMTkzMTg3MjJjYTZmYjFkZWQxYmJhYmJhMDVlOWFmNmFiOGRmNyx3VHA2RUFCNg%3D%3D&b=t%3Al1-urBJDmMy6XgAcZhGZfA&p=https%3A%2F%2Fworldwidefashion.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F179813418710%2Fmekhi-alante-lucky-for-slimi-november-2018-the&m=1&ts=1595795557" target="_blank">Jenny Haapala</a>&nbsp;
Groomer: <a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.instagram.com%2Fvictornoblepr%2F&t=YWVkZjZlMzlkNGQ2NjE2NDQ5Yjg1MWIwNDAwODIxYjQyMGJmOWZmMix3VHA2RUFCNg%3D%3D&b=t%3Al1-urBJDmMy6XgAcZhGZfA&p=https%3A%2F%2Fworldwidefashion.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F179813418710%2Fmekhi-alante-lucky-for-slimi-november-2018-the&m=1&ts=1595795557" target="_blank">Victor Noble</a>&nbsp;
Prop Designer: <a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.instagram.com%2Fexplore%2Ftags%2FGrahamOwen%2F&t=MWE5OGFiMDA5OWU3YzRkZTc5OTdjNDcwZTZiMjc1YmQ0ZWFjMDU4YSx3VHA2RUFCNg%3D%3D&b=t%3Al1-urBJDmMy6XgAcZhGZfA&p=https%3A%2F%2Fworldwidefashion.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F179813418710%2Fmekhi-alante-lucky-for-slimi-november-2018-the&m=1&ts=1595795557" target="_blank">Graham Owen</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
Casting Director: <a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.instagram.com%2Fnycbcg%2F&t=MjAyMzM0OTY3NWVkMmZlZWQxMDg4N2Q3NDU3MTFhZTAxNmQxZjM4OCx3VHA2RUFCNg%3D%3D&b=t%3Al1-urBJDmMy6XgAcZhGZfA&p=https%3A%2F%2Fworldwidefashion.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F179813418710%2Fmekhi-alante-lucky-for-slimi-november-2018-the&m=1&ts=1595795557" target="_blank">Bobby G.</a>&nbsp;
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Mekhi lucky - shane suban

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