In March 2021, during the pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the Municipal Galleries created an online program aimed at children and young people who were at home due to the closing of schools. Alone or accompanied, many found in their homes a proper place to express, by means of artistic gestures, their perception of both the inside and the outside worlds, as something that can no longer be postponed. It is that innocent gesture, ancient and revealing of our human existence, that we wanted to recover here, by bringing together an artist and a young person. In this online program, two or three sessions took place where both the young person and the artist, in a one-on-one relationship, were able to share ideas and find affinities which allowed them to create a piece together.
It was through this correspondence work that the cast of artists who participated in “four hands” was formed. The online sessions were mediated by a member of the mediation team at the Municipal Galleries, with a minimum quota of intervention (they were the hosts of the virtual site of the meeting, in a redrawn position of silence and with their cameras off, only visible and audible at times of welcoming and farewell). The encounters flowed in a intimately public way, whose images reproduced here are the testimony of the unique experiences of the allowed proximity in such troubled times.
Participants and artists:
Catarina Simões with Rui Horta Pereira
Francisca Larsson with Catarina Botelho
Francisca Ferreira with Altina Martins
Inês Azevedo with Alexandra Ramires
Isabel Brito with Ana Manso
Joana Neves with Duarte Amaral Netto
Johanna Abad with Francisca Carvalho
Laura Saraiva with Isabel Favila
Lavínia Queiroz with Eugénia Mussa
Maria Catarina Carvalho with Mariana Caló and Francisco Queimadela
Maria Rita Pereira with João Pimenta Gomes
Maria Durão with Joana da Conceição
Mariana Malhó with Thierry Simões
Marta Brás with Fátima Moreno
Matilde Mendes with Nuno Barroso
Miguel Domingues with Isabel Aboim Inglez