Laboratório de Artes na Montanha – Graça Morais: um projeto em construção

Abstract

The Portuguese painter Graça Morais (b. 1948) is the author of an extensive work which reflects both her origins – a small rural village in Northeast Portugal – and her experience in a cosmopolitan and constantly changing world. Her paintings not only evoke memories, but also describe contemporary events, thus intersecting the local and the global, the past and the present, in a dynamic approach that involves and questions the observer – and, through him, all humankind. Inspired by the tutelary work of the painter Graça Morais and her continuous activity over the last 40 years, the Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (Polytechnic Institute of Bragança) has recently created the Laboratório de Artes na Montanha – Graça Morais (Laboratory Arts in the Mountain – Graça Morais), a research structure that results from a strategic partnership between the Câmara Municipal de Bragança (Municipality of Bragança)/Centro de Arte Contemporânea Graça Morais (Contemporary Art Centre Graça Morais), the Instituto de História da Arte of the Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, and the painter herself. In this short article, we present the framework of this project which, promoting and disseminating scientific and artistic research and creation, formative activities and innovative academic training, aiming to convert Bragança and its surroundings in a decentralized hub of cultural events and, at the same time, a contact platform with the whole world.

Keywords

• Graça Morais
• cultural decentralization
• Contemporary Art Centre Graça Morais
• research project
• contemporary art collection