Eduardo Matos' oeuvre has an archaeological dimension - the excavation, collection and display of remains from the places that he observes is installed with an accurate creation of drawings, objects and current elements composed in ingenious installations. His concern with work, politics, the economy and civic life also led him to become involved with the organisation of his own working conditions - to create spaces for production and exhibition in places that, like the fabriquetas (little factories), offer alternatives to production and resist standardization.

The fabriqueta is a human fossil that has become part of the landscape, along with the ancient boulders and the centuries-old granite dwellings. The one he observed and details for us is a concrete existence - an indication of small hamlets, halfway between the rural world, domestic life and international orders. The artistic installation, like a para-diorama, replaces and integrates the place where his discoveries are arranged: a railing, window, well, pole, bench. Its cement blocks extend across the land and take root with the vines, brambles and tyres, harking back to an earlier time that appears to be rural. It also shows the artisanal power of being able to manufacture whatever is needed.

Overcoming the nostalgic gaze with which he composed a bucolic and inert landscape over the waters and banks of the Ave river, also in Guimarães (2012), in this case he becomes involved with life, body, voice and movement. Throughout 2023, Eduardo Matos and Max Fernandes, also a visual artist, will create and present a set of community performances with workers and teenagers, enabling this little factory to produce new meanings, imaginaries and artefacts. The public programme expands it and invites communities to participate.

Curated by Inês Moreira

On exhibition until September 3

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