Artistic Residency: Camilla Watson

"The great schools of fine arts are the museums. I wanted one in every town and in every village for the people to rise in spiritual communion of the beauty.”, Egas Moniz (Nobel Prize in Medicine, 1949)
It is this quote from Egas Moniz that continued to inspire us during the 2nd EDITION of ESTAU, which challenged us to design and try to achieve similar results to the inaugural edition of 2016, which was no easy task.
In this 2nd edition, it was impossible to deny that the streets of Estarreja have gained more life, more color and new ways of telling, learning and feeling their own history, because each wall tells a story and inspire those who pass by. ‘Memory’ is the result of both an investigative and creative process, where I interviewed 12 people who worked in a rice factory in Estarreja. They were also photograhed and asked to bring old photographs of the rice fields and the factory. The factory closed in 1985, and was a significant part of the identity of the city and generations of families worked there. The founder was both admired and respected by the community for his vision and kindness.
The photographs were printed onto stone and mounted beside the factory. Those interviewed wrote some of their memories on small irregular pieces of stone. Together with the photographs the final piece is a collage of both memories and portraits from the present and the past that tell the story of the factory. An old image of the founder Carlos Marques Rodgrigues was printed directly onto the wall using my mobile darkroom.