Meeting Her Again, 2015 – 2017

Wiggins first traveled to the Foundation OBRAS Artist Residency in Evoramonte, Portugal in 2015. Wiggins was influenced and empowered by the work of Portuguese performance artist Helena Almeida (1934 – 2018), who used her own figure as the subject in performative photographs. Wiggins began working with photographer Luís Branco and discovered a profound connection to the archetypal/mythical feminine that exists in the landscape and environment of the Alentejo region of Portugal.

Wiggins and Branco created several series of black-and-white images that feature Wiggins as the subject in a range of settings. Wiggins sits in the ruins of a building in a broad landscape in Two Chairs at Herdade da Marmeleira. She stands, her hair covering her face, on a mountainside in Woman, Standing Still. She is covered in black cloth (except for her feet) in Woman in Black. Wiggins lies in a rocky ravine wrapped in sheer black fabric in the series Woman in the Pego do Sino.

Wiggins and Branco exhibited these works and many more in the show Meeting Her Again (Reencontrando-a in Portuguese) at the Palácio dos Marqueses de Praia e Monforte in Estremoz, Portugal in 2017. Filmmaker Rui Fernandes produced a short video about this work and exhibition.

(photography by Luís Branco, video by Rui Fernandes)