WERTHER EFFECT

João Pedro Vale (Portugal)

Nuno Alexandre Ferreira (Portugal)

WERTHER EFFECT is a project done in two parts: a film and an exhibition of the objects used for its production. 

The project is based on Goethe’s “The Sorrows of Young Werther” plot but also in the ideas defended by Goethe, such as his color theory and his relationship with the city of Weimar, also known as the Bauhaus hometown.

Above all, is the idea of “Werther Effect” associated with suicide, the central theme of the project. “Werther Effect” was the name given to the phenomenon of imitation of famous peoples’ suicide (also known as copycat suicide) and refers to the fact that after the publication of the book, a series of suicides occurred inspired in the death of the protagonist.
The film describes the process of a group of actors, artists, craftsmen and members of an utopian community that are driven to commit a collective suicide.

With a tripartite structure, an obvious reference to the triadic ballet of Oscar Schlemmer, we witness a series of situations that allude to different temporal dimensions, always in a logic of representation of an epoch that is not intended to be veridical.

That way, the present is portrayed as a “new age” epoch that has the same amount of future and retro psychedelic vision, just like the future was portrayed in the golden age of sci-fi films.
In this present, the group of actors decides to stage a fictitious play written somewhere in the 1920’s that is called “Werther Effect” and that described the actions of a group of modern craftsmen, members of a futuristic community follower of free love. Confronted with the ascent of Nazism in Germany, that group decides that collective suicide is the last way of resistance that is left against that ideology.

In Carpe Diem Arte e Pesquisa the film will be shown together with the pieces and objects done for its production.
During the time of the exhibition will take place a group of workshops with Daniel Martins, where the themes of the film will be explored.

Film exhibition:

13h30 - 15h

15h -16h30

16h30 -18h

João Pedro Vale (Lisbon, 1976) graduated in Sculpture from the Fine Arts University of Lisbon and studied at Maumaus school. He has taken part in many collective and individual exhibitions since 1999 in Portugal as well as abroad (New York, Brasil, Wien). His work integrates important art collections, like Tate (London), Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Serralves Foundation or the National Contemporary Art Museum – Museum of Chiado.

Nuno Alexandre Ferreira (Portugal, 1973) lives and works in Lisbon. In 2004 he graduated in Sociology from the Nova University of Lisbon and has been working in collaboration with João Pedro Vale since 2008 (from sculpture to photography, including performances, films...)

João and Nuno have been producing experimental films together, along with the editorial project “P-Town” a queerzine that brings up LGBT themes together with the idea of “portugueseness”.

Site João Pedro Vale

Galeria Leme

Supported by: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian and Diamantino Filmes