Where were(n't) they?
Where were the women who came from the countryside to the city, to sell their goods or work in other people’s homes? Where were those who dreamed of studying? Where were the women who worked double shifts to support their families? Where were those who did not fit into prevailing values? Where were(n’t) they?
In this soundwalk, created from historical photographs, we look at the presence and absence of the feminine in the city’s history. Passing through several symbolic sites in Braga, this exhibition route combines photographs from the Municipal Archive with a set of sound recordings developed with a senior group from the Social Center of Cunha, through a process of collective reflection and discussion, complemented by other perspectives and experiences of the city.
What does a photographic archive conceal?
Each photograph exposes memories and reveals invisibilities. Amplified by the context of Portugal’s fascist Estado Novo regime, these invisibilities were reinforced by policies that confined women’s roles to the private sphere, limiting their participation in public life.
Through a process of collective reflection and discussion on photography as a staged representation guided by the values of its time, the project creatively explored what is absent and present in the images, understanding them as filtered representations of society. This soundwalk, structured around dialogues that juxtapose very different experiences, seeks to contribute to a reordering of the visible, giving voice to hidden stories that complement the Archive’s importance in constructing a more plural collective memory.
Exhibition period: October 3 – November 23
Starting point of the route: Municipal Archive of Braga
WORKSHOP: FAMILY PORTRAITS
October 4, 10:30 AM, Braga Municipal Archive
Duration: 90’
Diving into the vast collection of the Braga Municipal Archive, we encounter countless portraits of Braga families from the past. This workshop, designed for today’s Braga families, invites a creative exploration of what these portraits reveal, what they conceal, and what we can reimagine from them.
GROUP SESSIONS
Senior participants from the Social Center of Cunha
Collective and individual sessions held between May and July 2025
In partnership with the Centro Social de Cunha, a process of collective reflection and discussion was developed around the presence and absence of the feminine, based on a selection of photographs from the Municipal Archive.
Throughout a series of collective sessions, different dynamics were explored to create resonances between the selected photographs and the participants’ lived experiences, encouraging reflection on various themes: life and work (in the countryside and in the city), harsh and shortened childhoods, gender differences in access to education, the role of women and social expectations, courtship and marriage, the evolution of gender stereotypes, among others.
In a later phase, individual sessions were held with several participants in order to deepen the sharing of their experiences, so that their testimonies could be recorded and integrated into the sound journey in progress.
Where were(n't) they?: Presences and Absences through the Photographic Archive
Talk
March 8, Braga Municipal Archive
Diving into the vast photographic collection of the Braga Municipal Archive, a set of reflections emerges around the presence and absence of women in these historical sources.
The conversation symbolically marked International Women’s Day and the launch of the project of the same name, promoted by the Braga Municipal Archive with artistic direction by the collective PELE. This initiative aimed to involve the local senior community in processes of reflection, discussion, and collective creation, inspired by the city’s photographic archive.
Moderator: Vanessa Ribeiro Rodrigues
Guests: Ana Macedo, Carla Cerqueira, Inês Lapa
Creation: PELE
Promoters: Câmara Municipal de Braga, Arquivo Municipal de Braga
Partnership: Associação de Pais e Amigos da Freguesia de Cunha
Creative and Production Team:
Artistic Direction: Inês Lapa
Facilitation and Mediation: Mafalda Lourenço
Participants from the Cunha Social Center: António Ferreira Pinto, Francisco Dias de Oliveira, Luísa Faria Ferreira, Manuel dos Reis Ferreira Tinoco, Maria Fontela Gomes Costa Silva, Joaquim Martins Ribeiro, Jorge Marques Castro, José Manuel Barroso Cerqueira, Maria Manuela Gomes da Costa, Elvira Ferreira Miranda, Maria Conceição Gomes Araújo, Casimiro Barbosa
Testimonies from the public talk “Where were(n’t) they?” (March 8, 2025): Ana Macedo, Carla Cerqueira, Miguel Bandeira, Rosa Cabecinhas, Vanessa Ribeiro Rodrigues
External Collaboration: Armando Malheiro, Silvéria Louro Almeida
Sound Composition: Inês Lapa
Support for Audio Creation and Editing: Mafalda Lourenço
Exhibition Devices: Fernando Almeida
Sound Mixing: Tiago Candal
Graphic Design: Sérgio Couto
Production Direction: Carina Moutinho
Executive Production: Tiago Barros da Silva
Communications: Sara Cunha