The exhibition Liquid Geography offers a sensitive perspective on the Douro, bringing together three artists whose work explores the relationship between the river and the landscape. Fernanda Fragateiro, Duarte Belo, and Filipa Leal reinterpret this territory, transforming it into a fluid, oral, and conceptual landscape. Organised by CIM Douro – Douro Intermunicipal Community, the project celebrates the strength and fragility of the Douro River, evoking its ancestry and projecting it as a space of possibilities, where art serves as a bridge between past and future.
Inspired by the silk production tradition of Freixo de Espada à Cinta, Fernanda Fragateiro presents a sculptural installation made of silk threads dyed with natural pigments extracted from native plants of the region. This piece continues her collaboration with the Museum of Silk and Territory, reviving ancestral knowledge for contemporary creation. Internationally acclaimed, her work explores the intersection of sculpture and architecture, challenging spatial perception and the viewer’s experience.
Duarte Belo’s photographic series creates a visual cartography of the Douro, developed over three decades. His gaze captures a territory that is both timeless and ever-changing, revealing the unique beauty and geographical complexity of the region. His images, shifting between black and white and colour, expand the perception of the Douro as a dynamic ecosystem, where river, mountains, and terraced vineyards exist in perfect harmony. In Filipa Leal’s poetry, the Douro emerges as an intimate and essential presence. For this exhibition, she has created a series of haikus, displayed in Portuguese, English, and Japanese, symbolically connecting the river to the ocean visible from the Portugal Pavilion in Osaka.
Complementing the exhibition, Liquid Geography also features a musical performance by Fernando Mota, in which instruments and sound objects crafted from natural elements evoke water as a symbol of transformation and renewal.
