“Pearl” evokes, at first glance, and intensifies with each subsequent look, a journey through the landscape of the Island of Madeira, so named for the large amounts of wood found there in the 15th century, at the time of its discovery. However, in this series by Tiago Casanova, the concept of Landscape is extended to other meanings, far removed from the 19th-century naturalistic landscape. It is a contemporary landscape, where the natural, understood as “produced by Nature”, and the artificial, produced by Man, merge and flow together. Even the most idyllic and seemingly “natural” landscapes often bear the intervention of Man, whether through access routes or the presence of non-endemic species.

It is this hybrid relationship between Nature and Construction that Tiago Casanova sought to explore. He traversed the places of his island with the sensitivity of a fresh eye, searching for the splendor of natural refuges, while at the same time revealing his deep knowledge and aesthetic awareness of human intervention in that same Landscape. Between these two forces, Nature and Construction, there is the comfort of a viewpoint where we savor the scenery, and the confrontation of a road that bursts into the sea. A natural and urban landscape of Madeira Island through the lens of a contemporary Madeiran photographer, where it is impossible to ignore his architectural training, which here informs other formal and instrumental approaches.

The title of the project, Pearl, encapsulates this visual proposal by Tiago Casanova. After all, this was, and still is, the island known as the “Pearl of the Atlantic.”