I had nowhere to go

: as possibilidades narrativas da auto-etnografia

Abstract

I had nowhere to go is a photographic project that observes and registers the relationship between me and my brother Mark - each on one side of the camera - sharing the intense sharing and intimacy, inside and outside the same apartment, as we live together in Porto between the years 2019-2021 and aims to create a visual narrative, supported by a Photo Book and an Artistic Exhibition containing the photographs of this relationship, proposing a layered sensory experience regarding interpersonal relations. The text resulting from this study rehearses a sensitive comparison of projects by different authors, who make use of concepts of self-ethnography, intimate and familiar narratives in their works. Seeking to understand the relationship of authors with their subjects, observing the visual result and cognitive empathy provided by the narrative of their work. This project seeks to explore the narrative possibilities of self-ethnography and the composition of a sensitive narrative by approaching my relationship with Mark, my brother, living together for the first time in Portugal during the two years that correspond to the conclusion of this Master's Degree. The need to comprehend the social structures, to broadens the perception of our own spaces, the possibilities of representation that involve the portrait, and the reading of sensory ethnography and identification of cognitive maps, validate the auto-ethnographic voice and help to deconstruct the sensitive narrative as research approach. I had nowhere to go works as a visual narrative of this interaction, where the image of Mark does not represent exclusively him, but our mutual relationship, an image so similar and intimate to my own, becomes an identity shared by us. Where the title represents the desire to explore this intimacy and the use of our space during the restrictions of the pandemic, as we share this experience to illustrate a project that says as much about me as it does about it.

Date of Award	3 May 2022
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Carlos Lobo (Supervisor)