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
Opening: October 3, 5:30 PM
Starting point of the route: Municipal Archive of Braga