It was the summer of 1981. Every evening, Miguel Frazão and Joaquim Fernandes would invariably meet under the window of no. 1 Combatentes Street, behind the Courthouse.
Frazão was a 21 year-old architect who had just arrived in Guimarães, while Fernandes was already a well-known librarian and photographer in the city. Both were members of the recently formed Muralha (or Wall), the Guimarães Heritage Association. Amílcar Lopes, a photographer, had managed Foto Moderna from the late 1930s until his retirement in 1977.
Under the staircase at the Combatentes Centre, there were almost two hundred glass plates with images of Guimarães and its surroundings imprinted on them. They were original plates, no less. And the conversations during that Summer of 1981 were about these photographs: the majority of them had been taken by the photographer Domingos Alves Machado; the rest by his son-in-law, the aforementioned Amílcar Lopes, who in that same year, sold about two hundred images of Guimarães from his Foto Moderna shop in S. Dâmaso Alley, to the Muralha Association. A few years later the Muralha made a second purchase, this time from an antique shop. It comprised many thousands of original photographs from Foto Moderna—and from it’s predecessor, Foto Eléctrica Moderna—both studio portraits and city images on glass plates and film, which only escaped oblivion as a result of the Association’s action.
Foto Moderna was a renowned store, established in 1910 by Domingos Alves Machado (1882-1957) and originally known as Foto Eléctrica Moderna. It was based at 141 Comércio Avenue (currently Afonso Henriques Avenue) and if you walk by today and take a look up,you can still see the bust of Nicéphore Niépce, one of the inventors of photography. In the late 1940s, Foto Moderna moved to the now non-existent S. Dâmaso Street, where the shop remained until the demolition of the entire neighbourhood in 1958. It then transferred to 1, 28th of May Square (currently S. Dâmaso Alley), on the first floor of the building next to the ruins of the Torre da Alfândega (Customs Tower).
Domingos Alves Machado—or Machado the Photographer, as he was known—took pictures in both the studio and outdoors for almost forty years. He only stopped photographing in about 1940, devastated by the death of his only son. It was around then that the store, its name now shortened to Foto Moderna, was passed on to his son-in-law, Amílcar Lopes.
Amílcar Lopes arrived in Guimarães in 1924, when he was twelve. A leather craftsman who knew him in Murça, where Lopes was born and had lived until then, sent him to help Mr. Machado at the photography shop. The reason being that Amílcar had inherited from his father—a pharmacist—the aptitude and discipline to mix powders and liquids perfectly. Amílcar lodged at his boss’s house and fell in love with one of his daughters, Armandina, who he married in 1942. Over time he stopped working at the laboratory and instead started to accompany and assist Mr. Machado on his photographic trips to the city, subsequently taking the latter’s place when he retired. Amílcar Lopes then became Amílcar the Photographer – the studio portrait artist and city reporter responsible for capturing its spaces, places and daily business. He became an inseparable companion of Mário Cardozo on their journeys to the Citânia de Briteiros settlement and on the Martins Sarmento Society life register. Amílcar remained active until the late 1970s, when he handed the business over to his son João Ricardo Machado Lopes, who sold it in 1987.
And so we present a possible history of the images belonging to the Muralha Photography Collection: a collection of thousands of images showing Guimarães and its life, and that of nearby cities and places alongside studio portraits and pictures for publications. It comprises a set of originalsphotographs from Foto Eléctrica Moderna and Foto Moderna, which is assembled in the hazards of rearrangements and which stands out as one of the most consistent photography collections of Guimarães. The authorial origin of these images is unclear. But they are probably attributable to Domingos Alves Machado, between the late 19th century and the late 1930s, and Amílcar Lopes, from then until the late 1960s; and also it seems, to a photographer who preceded them both, but whose identity is still unknown: the author of the oldest images in the collection, which possibly date back to the early 1980s. Besides being taken prior to the foundation of Foto Eléctrica Moderna these few first images of the Muralha Photography Collection form a significant part of that photographic studio’s assets. However, it is still not possible to credit them to any particular photographer.
Forgotten for more than half a century, the images that comprise this collection arrived in Muralha’s possession in poor condition and without any kind of description or logical and thematic organisation. In fact, only one or two sequences managed to escape the resulting disarray. For almost twenty years, the Muralha Photography Collection resided in the attic of the Retired Peoples Association on Santo António Street in seriously unfavourable environmental conditions. Then in 2000, it was moved to the Raul Brandão Library—again without any efforts to catalogue or conserve the collection. It was also subject to regular handling by researchers, which only served to further weaken and disorganise it. Only since 2009 has the collection been stored in a room with controlled temperature and humidity at the Alfredo Pimenta City Archive. Also a first attempt at description and systematisation was carried out by Fernando Conceição, who was the chairman of Muralha at that time. The photographs in the collection have an interesting history of both publication and exhibition. For example, they are an important part of the book Guimarães, do Passado e do Presente (Ed. Câmara Municipal de Guimarães, 1985). Likewise, they have appeared in several exhibitions—the most recent being Guimarães in Black and White in 2009.Today, the Muralha Photography Collection is the subject of a concerted effort to preserve, archive and share it. These are certainly the main objectives of the project Reimagining Guimarães, developed by the Cinema Department of Guimarães, European Capital of Culture 2012. The aim being to preserve the collection by cleaning each negative, scanning in high resolution and rearranging them into an organised digital archive with detailed descriptions, accurate dating and thematic divisions. It will then become accessible to the whole world via the internet (at www.reimaginar.org) and also through exhibitions and publications.
The Wall City (A Cidade da Muralha) is the first step in this process. The first example of the endless possibilities that archives always offer us. The exhibition presents a selection of photographs of the public or semi-public spaces in Guimarães contained in the Muralha Photography Collection. The images are presented without any extensive treatment and with no attempt to hide damage, dirt, erosion or any post- production processes such as reframing and corrections made in the laboratory. These photographs stand out, not only as products of their own particular photographic time, but above all as products of their oblivion time and their waiting time.
From this study of the archive—the aforementioned inventory of endless possibilities—a proposal was made to show the external face of Guimarães in five sections: it starts with the city that can no longer be seen; moves on from there to the city created by the people for their festivals, work and worship; then to an imaginary place of possible stories and narratives; next we see the passing of time via the photographers’ return to places they have shot previously; and finally we leave with the city being rebuilt and taking a shape which is still familiar today. It is in this way that the Cidade da Muralha tries to turn Guimarães into a place in our imaginations. More narrative than history-based and more connected than chronological. This is the proposal today: to look at the city of Guimarães photographed over six decades and to discover all the stories taking place in the images. To re-imagine the city, no less.
Translated by Raquel Ralha. Revised by Tuse.
Graciela Machado, Ana Paula Coutinho
2021
Sílvia Simões, Natasha Antão, Vítor Silva
2020
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2020
978-989-9049-04-8
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Graciela Machado, Teresa Almeida, Ana Margarida Rocha
2020
978-989-9049-00-0
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Graciela Machado, Teresa Almeida, Ana Margarida Rocha
2020
978-989-9049-01-7
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2020
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Susana Lourenço Marques, Vitor Almeida
2020
2184–7991
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2020
978-989-54703-6-5
Português
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Carla Cruz, Hugo Cruz, Isabel Bezelga, Miguel Falcão e Ramon Aguiar
2020
978-989-54417-9-2
português, espanhol, inglês
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José Carlos de Paiva, Mário Bismarck, Sílvia Simões
2019
978-989-54703-3-4
Português
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2019
978-989-54417-7-8
English, Portuguese
The orthodox narrative of Western knowledge is particularly obsessed with clarity. Clarity should be understood here not only as an expression of intelligibility, but also, in terms of light. That the association between knowledge and clarity is a given, veils – that is, does not enlighten – the history of domination, obscurantism, occlusion, suppression of […]
Júlio Dolbeth, Margarida Dias, Rui Vitorino Santos, Tiago Assis
2019
978-989-54703-5-8
Portuguese, English
MEETING ON YOUTH EDUCATION THROUGH ILLUSTRATION [MYETI] is an internacional encounter that took place at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto, on 11th October 2019, at the end of the 3rd Edition of the YETI (https://yeti.up.pt). The publication MYETI#0 Livro de atas is composed by the articles that were created from the presentations and that […]
Catarina Martins, Marta Valente, Samuel Guimarães
2019
978-989-54417-3-0
English
International Meeting on Museum Education & Research #1 Rethinking Museum Theory and Practices This publication comes out of the first edition of IMMER #1 International Meeting on Museum Education & Research. Rethinking Museum Theory and Practices that took place at Museu do Douro (Douro Museum), Peso da Régua, Portugal, on the 23rd and 24th May 2018. […]
2019
PT
Publication of the PhD in Fine Arts of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto. Registration of exhibitions held during the academic year 2017-2018.
2019
978-989-54417-5-4
PT
This publication presents the work developed between November 2018 and March 2019 in the artistic residence developed at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, within the scope of the first edition of the Photography Biennial of Porto. The exhibition, curated by Susana Lourenço Marques, took place at the Museum of the […]
Francisco Laranjo, Domingos Loureiro, Sofia Torres, Teresa Almeida
2019
978-9889-54417-0-9
PT, ES, EN, FR
2019
978-989-54111-7-7
Português, Espanhol
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Domingos Loureiro, Sofia Torres
2018
978-989-54111-8-4
Português
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2018
978-989-54111-3-9
English, Portuguese
The editorial aim of ‘Artistic Research Does’ is to contribute to the comprehension of artistic and educational research in Portugal. Departing from the problematic framing of research towards, about, as much as, without, according, for, to, in face of, confronted, of, against, with, framed by, under, following, in art (quoting here a lengthy yet incomplete definition of artistic task as proposed […]
2018
978-989-54111-4-6
Português
Specularis, which will be held at the Museu Alberto Sampaio in Guimarães, is an open exhibition aiming to include the several studies and works produced around engraving and glass. It aims at showing the collaboration between different people and their areas of technological interest, based at the Faculdade de Belas Artes of the Universidade do […]
Mário Bismarck, Vítor Silva, Miguel Duarte
2018
1647-8045
Português
Catarina Martins, José Carlos de Paiva, Tiago Assis, Catarina Almeida
2018
2183-3524
English, Portuguese
Derivas is a semestral publication from the Post-Graduation Programs in Arts Education at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto and the Research Group in Arts Education at the i2ADS – Institute of Research in Art, Design and Society. The aim of the journal is to publish original articles, subject to blind peer review, […]
José Carlos de Paiva, Liliana Alves Couto
2018
978-989-54111-2-2
PT, ES
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2018
PT
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Catarina Almeida, Catarina Martins, José Carlos de Paiva, Tiago Assis
2018
Pt, Es
EPRAE is an international meeting that intends to make public and to discuss ongoing doctoral researches students with invited discussants and a community of students and teachers of arts education. Visit website: http://eprae.fba.up.pt 6th Encounter of Practices of Research in Arts Education
Cláudia Amandi, Joaquim Jorge Marques
2018
978-989-54111-0-8
2018
978-989-99839-4-6
English, Spanish
According to Juan Luis Moraza, art is the form of knowledge that avoided less the articulation of the capacities of knowing, of tasting and appreciating. By making use of the conceptual device saboer instead of knowledge, Moraza actualises knowledge as a process intrinsically defined by material and conceptual sensuality. This relation with subjective recursiveness (and its defence) is likely to be the […]
Mário Bismarck, Paulo Luís Almeida, Vítor Silva, José Manuel Barbosa, José Maria Lopes
2017
1647-8045
PT, Eng
PSIAX continues its mission of supporting research on drawing and image, carrying forward the publication of a selection of the most relevant papers presented in Drawing in the University Today – International Meeting on Drawing, Image and Research, held at the Faculty of Fine Arts and the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto, […]
Catarina Martins, Catarina Almeida, José Carlos de Paiva, Tiago Assis
2017
2183-3524
PT / ENG
Derivas is a semestral publication from the Post-Graduation Programs in Arts Education at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto and the Research Group in Arts Education at the i2ADS – Institute of Research in Art, Design and Society. The aim of the journal is to publish original articles, subject to blind peer review, […]
José Carlos de Paiva, Rita Rainho
2017
978-989-99839-7-7
Português
Partilha de Reflexões sobre as Artes, a Luta, os Saberes e os Sabores da Comunidade Quilombola de Conceição das Crioulas.
2017
978-989-99839-8-4
EN
Creative School Partnerships with Visual Artists, is a project for experimenting pedagogies based on contemporary art practices in primary schools. The project has been co-funded with support from the European Commission (2015-1-PT01-KA201-012989), started in 01/09/2015 and finished 30/11/2017. Crearte aspires to promote creative spaces in education that will fire young students’ active participation, willingness to […]
Francisco Laranjo, Domingos Loureiro, Sofia Torres, Teresa Almeida
2017
978-989-746-143-9
Pt, Es, Eng
Reflexions Beyond Thinking and Practice This book gathers a selection of articles made in context of the International Congress on Contemporary European Painting, held at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, in April 3, 4 and 5, 2017.
Sofia Torres, Domingos Loureiro
2017
978-989-99839-6-0
Pt, Es, Eng
This publication was held in the context of the International Conference #2 Research Journeys of the Nucleus of Art and Design, of the Reserach Institute of Art, Design and Society. It presents the abstracts of more than two dozen communications made by researchers, artists and art teachers, occurred on November 23 and 24, 2017 at […]
Catarina Martins, Miguel Carvalhais, Paulo Luís Almeida, Paulo Bernardino, Cleomar Rocha, Maria de Fátima Lambert, Maria Manuela Lopes, Suzete Venturelli
2017
978-989-99839-3-9
16th International Meeting of Art and Technology #16.ART: Artis intelligentia: IMAGINING THE REAL Proceedings book 2017
Fernando José Pereira, Eugénia Vilela, Jorge Leandro Rosa
2017
2184-0067
Português
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2017
978-989-99839-0-8
Português, English
Anita Seppä’s “Art as an Act of Love with the Radically Other – The Post-Humanist Art of Terike Haapoja” opens up for the statement that there is a transformative power in opening up. Otherness appears at the centre of this thought in terms of the meanings of sharing, giving, and including. Artistic Research Does #3 […]
Sofia Ponte, Domingos Loureiro, Sofia Torres, Francisco Laranjo
2017
978-989-746-124-8
Português
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Francisco Laranjo, Domingos Loureiro, Sofia Torres, Teresa Almeida
2017
978-989-746-136-1
Pt, Es, Eng
Reflexions inside the University This book gathers a selection of articles made in context of the International Congress on Contemporary European Painting, held at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, in April 3, 4 and 5, 2017.
Francisco Laranjo, Domingos Loureiro, Sofia Torres, Teresa Almeida
2017
978-989-746-122-4
PT, ES, EN
ICOCEP, 1sth International Conference on Contemporary European Painting, is organized by Faculdade de Belas Artes (College of Fine Arts) of the University of Porto and I2ADS, Research Institute of Arts, Design and Society. It aims to promote dialogue and discussion, and develop research projects between Professors, Artists, Graduate Students and Researchers from different locations and institutions. This book of abstracts of […]
2017
978-972-36-1548-7 (Edições Afrontamento), 978-989-746-119-4 (i2ADS)
Português
2016
978-989-98745-9-6
Português, English
The publishing of first essay of the series Artistic Research Does brought us to a state of drooling joy. The acute remarks and observations made by Annette Arlander in that essay were instrumental to set our dear project in motion. With the new academic season Artistic Research Does proudly presents a new contribution for the […]
2016
Português, English
Hey presto!, this is not another ant-ology neither aspires being part of one. And we are not tied to defining artistic research neither we intend to spend our and others’ sweat to eventually provide an enlightened state of the art. We are nevertheless quite happy to present a friendly, fancy and laid-back ink and paper […]
2016
978-989-730-050-9
Português
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2015
978-989-730-042-4
English
Texts by Catarina Almeida, Catherine Rosamond, Cristina Mendanha, Eduardo Morais, Joana Mendonça, Leonardo Charréu e Marilda Oliveira, Lígia Lima, Sofia Barreira
Diana Carvalho, Miguel Leal, Dário Cannatà, João Brojo, Felícia Teixeira
2014
978-989-98745-4-1
Português, English
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Catarina Martins, José Carlos de Paiva
2014
978-989-730-041-7
English
Derivas is a semestral publication from the Post-Graduation Programs in Arts Education at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto and the Research Group in Arts Education at the i2ADS – Institute of Research in Art, Design and Society. The aim of the journal is to publish original articles, subject to blind peer review, […]
2014
978-989-97856-6-3
Catarina Martins, José Carlos de Paiva, Catarina Almeida, Tiago Assis
2014
ISSN: 2183-3524
Português, Espanhol
Derivas is a semestral publication from the Post-Graduation Programs in Arts Education at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto and the Research Group in Arts Education at the i2ADS – Institute of Research in Art, Design and Society. The aim of the journal is to publish original articles, subject to blind peer review, […]
Miguel Carvalhais, Pedro Tudela
2014
978-989-98745-0-3
English
This volume concerns music, sound arts and sound in the arts and media. It collects reflections on theory and practice, on composition, performance, technique, virtuosity and aesthetics, as well as on publishing strategies and other issues brought about by computational technologies. It tries to traverse a convoluted map of artistic and design practices that are […]
Cláudia Amandi, Graciela Machado, Pedro Maia
2014
978-989-746-035-7
Português
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José Carlos de Paiva, Rita Rainho
2013
978-989-730-031-8
Português, English, Castellano
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2013
978-989-97856-8-7 (PORTUGAL)
978-84-475-3843-0 (ESPANYA)
Português, Català
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2013
1647-8045
Português, Castellano
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Catarina Martins, Manuela Terrasêca, Vítor Martins
2012
978-989-20-3000-5
Português, English
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2012
978-972-98517-7-3
Português, English, Castellano
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José Carlos de Paiva, Catarina Martins
2011
978-972-9171-76-5
Português, English
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2011
Português, English
A compendium of contemporary public art / space thinking. “In the spirit of an exploratory, transdisciplinary object, you may thus find here essays on the mutating codes of landscaping (Laura Castro), a possible topology of media (Miguel Leal), the shifting status of public art (Jeremy Hunt & Jonathan Vickery), and even a graphic novel on non-gravity […]
Fernando José Pereira, Miguel Leal
2007
1646-7388
Português, English
The title MONO becomes relevant in the context of a publication intending to reflect the contemporariness of visual arts, in particular through its inherent connection with the production process – mono is the volume/prototype made by printers to enable the client to check the final work. And in addition because on embodying the notion of […]