Museu Municipal de Faro / Antigas Carpintarias Thu 4 NOV 18h30 - OPENING Until 23 JAN 2022 Tue to Fri 10h00 > 18h00 Sat and Sun: 10h30 > 17h00 Photography Exhibition Adults: 1€ Retired / Teachers / Students / Young people (13-26): 0,50€ Until 12: Free On Sunday: Free until 14h30 The Museu Municipal de Faro closes from the 24 of December to January 10. 40% Photography / 25% Installation/ 20% Politic / 15% Emotion
In 2019 Pauliana Valente Pimentel started a project involving gypsy families in Algarve, especially in the Castro Marim and Vila Real de Santo António areas. What fascinated the artist about these families was the way they have kept their traditions for centuries, and their nomadic way of life.
Roma communities in Portugal continue to face discrimination and are forced to live on the margins of society, with poor housing conditions, low education levels and high unemployment rates, according to a report by the Council of Europe released in January 2020.
This project aims to counter the commonly held view of gipsy communities in Algarve, and includes the Faro, Loulé and Boliqueime camps – Cerro do Bruxo, Horta da Areia, Alto do Relógio and Monte João Preto.
This work aims to show the daily lives of these families, emphasizing their traditions and bring to light the prejudice, racist and xenophobic stereotypes that they constantly face.
Faro-Oeste is a project commissioned by Festival Verão Azul.
Production: casaBranca
Partnership: Câmara Municipal de Faro / Museu Municipal de Faro
Exhibition project: Pauliana Valente Pimentel
Exhibition’s Assemble: Angelo Gonçalves
Co-production: Teatro das Figuras, Cine-Teatro Louletano / Câmara Municipal de Loulé
Institutional Partner: Programa Garantir Cultura – Entidades Artísticas, República
Portuguesa – Ministério da Cultura
Acknowledgements: My sincere thanks to the entire team of Verão Azul, especially Joana Duarte, my tireless field assistant, without whose help this work would have been far more difficult. Thanks also to Gil Silva (Teatro das Figuras) and Paulo Pires (Cine-Teatro Louletano / Loulé City Council) for putting me in contact with the professionals who work daily to support the people who live in these camps.
Thanks to the Municipal Museum of Faro and its Director, Marco Lopes, for hosting this exhibition.
A big thank you to the Lusco-Fusco project (ECOS -Cooperativa de Educação, Cooperação e Desenvolvimento, CRL), to the António Silva Leal Foundation (Projecto Centro Comunitário Horta da Areia) and to the António Aleixo Foundation (Projecto Caminhos), and in particular to its coordinators and instructors: Aurora Coelho, Cláudio
Garcia, David Fernandes, Catarina Novaes and Marilita Santos.
Finally, to the Elders of the camps, who trusted me and gave me permission to photograph.
Pauliana Valente Pimentel – 1975, Lisbon. As a visual artist, she has been producing collective and solo exhibitions since 1999. In 2005 she took part in the photography course of the Gulbenkian Creativity and Artistic Creation Program. She was a member of the [Kameraphoto] collective from 2006 until 2014. She is a teacher of Author Photography. Her first book, “VOL I” was published in 2009, by Pierre Von Kleist, “Caucase, Souvenirs de Voyage” in 2011 by Gulbenkian Foundation, “Quel Pedra” by Camera Infinita in 2018 and “Narcisismo das Pequenas Diferenças” by Lisbon City Hall in 2019. She also produced several films. In 2015 she won the prize for the best photographic work of the year by the Portuguese Author Society and in 2016 she was a nominee for the “Novo Banco prize”. She was represented for five years by “Galeria 3+1 Arte Contemporânea” and seven years by “Galeria das Salgadeiras” in Lisbon. She currently collaborates with several galleries in Europe and works in both private and institutional collections.