Over 45 days, from 6 October to 19 November 2026, artists from different countries and artistic practices will live and work in Torrão, developing research and creative processes rooted in the landscape, memory, oral traditions, materiality and the people of the territory.

The project takes Frigénia Maria da Conceição Sequeira, a popular poet from Torrão, as its point of departure — not simply to create a biographical portrait, but to open a broader reflection on a generation whose lives were profoundly shaped by the rural Alentejo of the mid-20th century.

Her poetry, created and transmitted orally, also accompanies the starting point of the residency:

“O papel com que te escrevo
Saiu-me da palma da mão
A tinta saiu-me dos olhos
E a pena do coração.”

— Frigénia Maria da Conceição Sequeira

“The paper on which I write to you
Came from the palm of my hand
The ink came from my eyes
And the quill from my heart.”

It is from this voice — and from the many voices, gestures, memories and forms of knowledge carried by her generation — that FRIGÉNIA is born.

Territory as a point of departure

FRIGÉNIA seeks to bring contemporary artistic creation into dialogue with forms of knowledge that have often remained outside formal archives.

Stories transmitted orally, poems and songs, gestures, agricultural work, manual knowledge, ways of building and inhabiting, relationships with land and plants, recipes, family memories and knowledge passed between generations become material for encounter, research and creation.

For mediation purposes, the project will focus particularly on people born approximately between 1930 and 1950, without treating this period as a rigid criterion.

More important than age itself is direct experience of ways of living, working, socialising and relating to the territory that have undergone profound transformations over recent decades.

Members of the community are not approached as subjects of collection, but as participants and holders of knowledge, within a process based on listening, consent, trust and reciprocity.

4 artists in residence

Mili Vizcaíno — Spain

Mili works through music, oral traditions and intangible heritage.

During the residency, she will explore forms of memory transmitted through conversations, songs, everyday knowledge, rural practices, plants, recipes, home remedies and traditional know-how.

One possible line of research relates to the memory of women connected to agricultural work and to forms of singing and sociability associated with that world, including Ladrão do Sado as a possible doorway into other stories and memories.

Luca Gori — Italy

Luca’s work begins with the sensory perception of landscape, particularly through touch and smell.

He is interested in understanding how earth, stone, lime, vegetation, materials, architecture, climate and ways of inhabiting shape the experience of a place.

In Torrão, he will explore building practices, local materials, plants, paths and forms of knowledge transmitted through making, bringing together bodily experience, landscape and vernacular knowledge.

Hanna Ilczyszyn — Belgium / Poland

Hanna works between painting and ceramics, exploring relationships between people, memory, belonging and place.

Her own family history, marked by displacement across countries and generations, has led her to questions of staying, leaving, returning and belonging.

In Torrão, she will work through encounters, life stories, family photographs, landscape and memory, seeking to understand how people and places carry the traces of time.

Sadrie Alves — Belgium / Brazil

Sadrie works across visual arts, performance, writing, video and textiles.

Her research begins with lullabies and oral transmission between women and generations: who sang them, who taught them, who still remembers them, and what remains when words or melodies begin to disappear.

Her work may bring together voice, care, childhood, family, migration, memory and different forms of transmission.

Jeanne Roualet’s associated project

Also in dialogue with the residency is Jeanne Roualet, a French artist based in Évora, with a project associated with FRIGÉNIA.

Jeanne’s work begins directly with Frigénia’s oral poetry and with a central question:

How do you write a poetry that has always existed outside writing?

The artist proposes to develop a graphic system inspired by early forms of inscription, seeking to record not only words, but also rhythm, breathing, pauses, repetition and inflection.

These signs may be inscribed into clay or brick elements, transforming voice, memory and oral expression into matter and installation.

45 days of listening, research and creation

The residency does not begin from a fixed artistic agenda.

During the first weeks, the artists will walk through the territory, meet people, visit places, listen to stories, observe practices and test the questions they bring with them to Torrão.

The research will be supported by a mentoring and community mediation structure, enabling the artists to engage with different forms of local knowledge without compromising the autonomy of each creative process.

Patrícia Hortinhas provides close, on-the-ground mentoring and community mediation throughout the residency, regularly accompanying the artists, preparing and contextualising encounters and ensuring continuity between the different stages of the process.

Rita Antonieta Neves provides overall coordination and cross-cutting support for the residency, connecting artists, mentors, community members, DaST projects and partners.

Frédéric Coustols, Carlos Bragança Santos, Simon Punter, Phil Hawes, António Ricardo Costa and Filipa Assiswill also contribute at different moments, drawing on their respective areas of experience.

Public presentation

On 14 and 15 November, FRIGÉNIA will open the processes developed during the residency to the public.

Rather than presenting five isolated outcomes, the aim is to create a shared moment capable of revealing the different relationships developed between memory, voice, matter, landscape, body and territory.

The residency formally ends on 19 November, after 45 days of research, creation and shared life in Torrão.

Impact beyond growth

The first edition of FRIGÉNIA represents:

– 45 days of artistic residency in Torrão;
– 4 international artists supported by Culture Moves Europe / Goethe-Institut;
– 1 associated artistic project;
– artists from Spain, Italy, Belgium and France;
– research processes around memory, oral traditions, intangible heritage, landscape, architecture, matter and intergenerational transmission;
– involvement of community members as participants and holders of knowledge;
– continuous mentoring and community mediation;
– connections between artistic creation, territory, research and projects currently being developed within Torrão LAB;
– a public presentation on 14 and 15 November;
– the creation of documentation and an archive of the process.

Beyond these tangible outcomes, FRIGÉNIA seeks to create space for forms of knowledge that are often invisible to be listened to, shared and reinterpreted through contemporary artistic creation.

The project contributes to strengthening relationships between generations, bringing artists and community closer together, valuing situated knowledge and allowing the memory of a territory to be understood not only as an inheritance from the past, but as a resource for imagining the future.

It is aligned with the principles of the New European Bauhaus — beauty, sustainability and inclusion —, bringing together artistic creation, heritage, participation, local knowledge and relationships with landscape.

It also contributes to Sustainable Development Goals 4, 10, 11 and 17, through learning and intergenerational transmission, the recognition of under-represented voices and forms of knowledge, the safeguarding of cultural heritage and collaborative partnerships.

FRIGÉNIA begins with a simple question: what can happen when we make time to listen to what a territory still knows?

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Technical information 

and organisations involved

FRIGÉNIA — Rural Landscapes Lab
First edition · 2026

Promoting organisation
Foundation DaST — Design a Sustainable Tomorrow

Local platform
Convento da Terra

Residency period
6 October to 19 November 2026

Duration
45 days

Artists in residence

Mili Vizcaíno — Spain
Music · Oral traditions · Intangible heritage · Memory

Luca Gori — Italy
Visual arts · Sensory perception · Earth · Matter · Landscape · Ways of inhabiting

Hanna Ilczyszyn — Belgium / Poland
Painting · Ceramics · People · Memory · Belonging · Landscape

Sadrie Alves — Belgium / Brazil
Visual arts · Performance · Voice · Oral traditions · Intergenerational transmission

Associated project

Jeanne Roualet — France / Évora
Oral poetry · Writing · Clay · Matter · Memory

Mentoring and support

Patrícia Hortinhas
Close mentoring · Community mediation · Connection to the territory

Rita Neves
Coordination · Cross-cutting support · DaST / Torrão LAB liaison

Frédéric Coustols
Landscape · Regeneration · Integral ecology · Art and aesthetics · Conservation and restoration

Carlos Bragança Santos
Rural landscape · Ecology · Agriculture · Water · Territory

Simon Punter
Community · Participation · Place · Reciprocity

Other contributions

Phil Hawes
Architecture · Climate · Matter · Construction · Ways of inhabiting

António Ricardo Costa
Architecture · Sustainability · Environmental comfort · Energy · Built heritage

Filipa Assis
Participation in specific moments of the residency and connections with other cultural processes being developed in Torrão

Key dates

Start of the residency
6 October 2026
09:00–16:00

Public presentation
14 and 15 November 2026

End of the residency
19 November 2026

Supported by
Culture Moves Europe / Goethe-Institut

Acknowledgements

Our first thanks go to Frigénia Maria da Conceição Sequeira, whose voice, poetry and life inspired the name and starting point of this residency.

We thank the artists Mili Vizcaíno, Luca Gori, Hanna Ilczyszyn, Sadrie Alves and Jeanne Roualet for their willingness to enter this territory with time, curiosity and openness.

Our thanks also extend to the mentors, collaborators, partners and, above all, to the people of Torrão who will open doors and share memories, knowledge, stories and time throughout these six weeks.

FRIGÉNIA is supported by Culture Moves Europe, an initiative funded by the European Union and implemented by the Goethe-Institut.