Inasmuch as a visual synthesis of what has happened in a specific territory, Argumentos visuals (Visual Arguments) attempts to compare images thematically arranged which are descriptive of the past and present situation of the landscape of the archipelagos of Macaronesia (Canaries, Madeira, Azores and Cape Verde), with a view to showing that, erasing space and time, there are striking similarities, apart from the singular features marking the individual development of each one.

Similarities, but also opportunities, that are however already lost in some of the islands and full of potential in others. It is therefore all about provoking a reflection allowing us to formulate questions about how to make landscape preservation profitable without renouncing the best possible quality of life for all the inhabitants of a place.

Few people dispute the fact that our perception of the landscape is coloured by physical and biotic, objective and quantifiable factors, and subjective or personal aspects. In other words the landscape is not as it is, but as we believe it to be, as the observer perceives it.

Most of the time when we speak of the landscape we are describing a specific place, as an impression, a sketch or idea of the framework that provides the backdrop for a figurative or real event or action. In our more customary scientific-technical language, when we refer to landscape we do so almost always as a synonym of territory.

There is no question that factors like geomorphology, light, vegetal or the greater or less degree of anthropisation, determine the nature and quality of the landscape. It is clear that the landscape is a result of a complex mix of physical, biotic and cultural factors, which are never exempt from the subjectivity of the observer.

Among these factors, vegetation, both natural and anthropic, plays a crucial role and takes on special relevance when it is interpreted with the perspective of time. One can also discern a dynamic role related with man’s uses of the territory, which can be graphically perceived when comparing the maps of potential vegetation (what would have been without the intervention of man) and actual vegetation (real situation observed at present).

Besides reflecting this situation in maps and quantifying it in numbers, for the most significant vegetal formations, the exhibition wishes to illustrate with comparative images and photos between the yesterday (natural) and the today (anthropised). Images inviting a reflection on the dynamic reality of landscape.