ROOM 2
Mysteries of Fire: the "maternities" in the José de Guimarães' collection
Secrets, maternities
and songs, between
transmission and
emancipation. A journey
through the circular
time of the mysteries
Many stories associated with
ancient fertility cults speak
about renewal and strength,
such as those of the sanctuary
of Eleusis, near Athens, where
the goddesses Demeter and
Persephone “made” the spring,
causing vegetation to be reborn.
Fertility and wisdom are also
interlinked in another mystery
tradition, that of the Geledé
female religious society, of the
Yoruba and Nago peoples, in
Nigeria, Benin and Togo.
A remarkable set of fifty African statues from the José de
Guimarães collection, acquired
in different parts of Europe
since the 1980s, are now shown
in the museum. They are ancestral mothers, transmitters
of different models of vitality
and beauty, based on local criteria and regional variations.
Their main defining motifs are
universal: a mother carrying
a child in her arms, or on her
back, with bare breasts and belly and a serene gaze.
The statues are flanked by the
works of other artists, that
question and shelter them.
The simplicity and realistic
evidence of the floral drawings by José de Guimarães’s
mother, Maria Amélia Coutinho (1916-2004), evoke the
“ephemeral eternity” of still
life paintings. The emancipation stories of black women,
in the film Kbela (2015) by the
Brazilian filmmaker Yasmin
Thayná. The religious songs
that are still performed today
on Good Friday, such as O Vos
Omnes or the Canto de Verónica. Finally, the artist Carla
Cruz’s project All My Independent Women, which is reconstituted in this room, incorporates new chapters, in this case,
episodes from the history of
the women of Guimarães.
FOR ALL AGES
Maria Amélia Coutinho was born in
Guimarães in 1916, the daughter of José
da Rocha Coutinho and Maria Mendes
Simões. She attended the College of
Nossa Senhora da Conceição until 1931,
and then completed courses in Commerce,
Design and Embroidery in the Francisco
de Holanda Industrial and Commercial
School, in Guimarães, between 1931 and
1937, studying under the professors, José
de Pina, Dr. Fernando Mattos Chaves
and the sculptor, António d’Azevedo. She
married Joaquim Fernandes Marques in
1939 and they had three children: José
Maria (the artist José de Guimarães), Joaquim Maria and Maria José. She initially
devoted herself to caring for and educating
her children and then to social and welfare
causes in the Parish of Nossa Senhora da
Oliveira, in Guimarães. She died on November 16, 2004.
A Música Portuguesa a gostar dela
própria (=Portuguese music liking itself) is
an association that, through the work of the
director, Tiago Pereira, has been creating
awareness for the knowledge and importance of the oft-forgotten living heritage
of the oral tradition, songs, novels, short
stories, practices sacred, profane, music,
dances and also gastronomy. This awareness - which is essentially a mechanism
for memory literacy - reminds us that there
is an urgent need to document, record
and reuse fragments of the memory of a
people. The project began in 2011.
Yasmin Thayná was born in Nova Iguaçu,
Brazil. She is the director and screenwriter of more than twenty films, series and
music videos, including “Kbela”, “Afrotranscendence”, “pretalab”, the latter about
black women who work with, and think
about, technologies. In 2020 she directed
the film “A vida é urgente” (Life is urgent)
for the Moreira Salles Institute.
Carla Cruz is an artist, researcher and
teacher (EAUM). She has a PhD in artistic
practices from Goldsmiths College, London. Her recent artistic practice focuses
on different forms of coexistence in an
unequal society and damaged planet.
She is currently developing the project
“Associação de Amigos da Praça dx Anjx”
(Association of Friends of the Praça dx
Anjx) with Ângelo Ferreira de Sousa. Since
2013, she has developed the “Finding
Money” project with António Contador.
She co-founded the feminist collective of
artistic intervention ZOiNA (1999-2004),
and the Associação Caldeira 213 (1999-
2002). Between 2005-2013 she coordinated the feminist exhibition project, “All My
Independent Women”.
FOR ALL AGES
Maria Amélia Coutinho was born in
Guimarães in 1916, the daughter of José
da Rocha Coutinho and Maria Mendes
Simões. She attended the College of
Nossa Senhora da Conceição until 1931,
and then completed courses in Commerce,
Design and Embroidery in the Francisco
de Holanda Industrial and Commercial
School, in Guimarães, between 1931 and
1937, studying under the professors, José
de Pina, Dr. Fernando Mattos Chaves
and the sculptor, António d’Azevedo. She
married Joaquim Fernandes Marques in
1939 and they had three children: José
Maria (the artist José de Guimarães), Joaquim Maria and Maria José. She initially
devoted herself to caring for and educating
her children and then to social and welfare
causes in the Parish of Nossa Senhora da
Oliveira, in Guimarães. She died on November 16, 2004.
A Música Portuguesa a gostar dela
própria (=Portuguese music liking itself) is
an association that, through the work of the
director, Tiago Pereira, has been creating
awareness for the knowledge and importance of the oft-forgotten living heritage
of the oral tradition, songs, novels, short
stories, practices sacred, profane, music,
dances and also gastronomy. This awareness - which is essentially a mechanism
for memory literacy - reminds us that there
is an urgent need to document, record
and reuse fragments of the memory of a
people. The project began in 2011.
Yasmin Thayná was born in Nova Iguaçu,
Brazil. She is the director and screenwriter of more than twenty films, series and
music videos, including “Kbela”, “Afrotranscendence”, “pretalab”, the latter about
black women who work with, and think
about, technologies. In 2020 she directed
the film “A vida é urgente” (Life is urgent)
for the Moreira Salles Institute.
Carla Cruz is an artist, researcher and
teacher (EAUM). She has a PhD in artistic
practices from Goldsmiths College, London. Her recent artistic practice focuses
on different forms of coexistence in an
unequal society and damaged planet.
She is currently developing the project
“Associação de Amigos da Praça dx Anjx”
(Association of Friends of the Praça dx
Anjx) with Ângelo Ferreira de Sousa. Since
2013, she has developed the “Finding
Money” project with António Contador.
She co-founded the feminist collective of
artistic intervention ZOiNA (1999-2004),
and the Associação Caldeira 213 (1999-
2002). Between 2005-2013 she coordinated the feminist exhibition project, “All My
Independent Women”.
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