2016-2020
“Fundação Lar do Emigrante Português no Mundo” is a photographic and research project conducted between 2016 and 2020 on the Foundation Home for Portuguese Emigrants in the World (Fundação Lar do Emigrante Português no Mundo), a small satellite city built in the 1980’s on a forested area in the north of Portugal. The institution, planned and partially constructed by an emigrant returned from Venezuela, was intended to welcome others who, like him, had returned to Portugal. However, due to the megalomania of the private initiative and to a lack of funding, the enterprise failed.
The place is abandoned and there are the usual traces of vandalism, but also evidence of use by extreme right groups. The project brings together photographs taken over the last few years and documents found at the site – photographs, illustrations, posters, architectural drawings, texts, correspondence – as well as stills from the documentary “Portuguese House, House of Foreign Influences: The Dream of the Emigrant” (RTP1, 1988) which included an interview with the foundation’s mentor. In fact, recalling the aspirations of this personality, who seems quixotic to us nowadays, we are led to the visual essay. The images confront the documentation, showing a process of erosion that, as well as disturbing the material, also acts biographically and ideologically.
The iconographic dialogue, which develops, prompts a reflection on the permeability of the concept of Utopia, and ends with an irony that seems to exemplify the scale of the social crises, which are being faced in many countries and which particularly jeopardize the integrity of the European Union and its assumptions.
Text by Vera Carmo
Inkjet print on paper Fine Art . Different dimensions . Edition: 5+1AP
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Community square, n.2, 2017 New Year’s Eve invitation, 1990 Central residencial building, n.4, 2018 Madeira pavilion, n.1, 2017 Obelisk, n.1, 2018 Garden, n.3, 2018 Madeira pavilion, n.2, 2020 Advertising sticker, unknown date Administration, n.2, 2019 Azores pavilion, n.1, 2017 Noble hall, n.3, 2016 Central residencial building, n.12, 2020 Noble hall, n.2, 2016 Garden, n.6, 2020 Central residencial building, n.6, 2018 Stills from video RTP1, “Portuguese House, House of Foreign influences: The dream of the Emigrant”, 1988 Noble hall, n.1, 2016 Stills from video RTP1, “Portuguese House, House of Foreign influences: The dream of the Emigrant”, 1988 Tennis court, n.2, 2018 Central residencial building, n.7, 2018 Garden, n.5, 2017 Central residencial building, n.10, 2018 Noble hall, n.4, 2017 Advertising poster, unknown date