Marcela Costa is a daughter of the land. Born and resident in Funchal, she grabbed our invitation to write about her island.
Marcela Costa was born in Funchal in 1965. With a degree in plastic arts and painting, with a master’s degree in Museology, she generously distributed her time between drawing, writing, theater and teaching.
She has 25 years of theatre career, having already performed the roles of playwright, writer and set designer.
The mountain embraces me from behind. A strong, relentless embrace. Ahead, the sky cut in two. A prison? No, the release of my dreams.
Would you like to know where the Island started?
Through fire, incandescent movement on the ocean floor until the urgency of giving oneself to the world.
A childbirth. The lava erupted through the chimney in the shape of a chalice and, in contact with the water, it was transformed into blood-coloured salty ice. Later, that church rose above the pyroclastic layers draped in green, as if the bare mountain had to dress to honour Man’s faith.
Below, by the stream that cascades down, I hear the voices of the ancestors towards the great plain, the sea. On the border between fresh and salt water, another chapel inhabits the rock, its cross at the top and attentive to the sailing of the centuries.
It takes many lives to understand the amount of sounds the water makes.
If you had to tell a child about your trip, what would you say?
I was on an island where the beaches have black sand, it rains and shines in the same place within 2 minutes, the food includes flowers and the landscapes almost make us cry for its beauty.
The biggest challenge and the biggest reward of this experience?
I was challenged to tune in with the graphic artists, seeing what they saw and describing the first sensations, without filters; the best reward was following closely the activity of Urban Sketchers Charline Moreau and Luís Araújo and getting to know the island through their eyes.
If you had to recommend Madeira to friends, what would you say?
On the same island, you can experience everything that exists dispersed throughout mainland Portugal.
