FIO2 | Memórias como Matéria-Prima

On March 28, 2016, as part of the reopening program of the São Francisco Convent, the Coimbra City Hall began its first artistic project FIO | Memories as Raw Material*.

Responding to the development of specific projects capable of creating lines of contact between Art, Culture and Community, FIO had as an argument for the creation of a strong sense of community, the memories of the work at the Wool Factory of Santa Clara.

Founded in 1888 by Jayme Planas Coronellas, Pedro Peig Doria and Buenaventura Doria Borrell, the Factory worked on the building of the Convent for about a century. The life of this textile unit, which has in the memory of the city a special place, was due to several generations of entrepreneurs and workers, who made this place their daily home.

Throughout the artistic process, always appealing to community participation, the FIO project sought to activate the assets (material and immaterial) associated with the Factory and to pay homage to the last inhabitants of the old Convent, whether through documentation or mural painting.

After the various stages of development, the final result of FIO was reflected in the painting of the faces of people connected to the Factory, which, when displayed on the streets of the city, in neighboring towns and inside the same building, allowed us to discover a little more about the history of the San Francisco Convent and the region itself.

FIO has undeniably conferred a renewed emotional charge on the space of the Convent and has since become an agent of intermediation and liaison between various communities, be they artistic, historical, family or simply local.

After 3 years, during which we were collecting and accumulating (new) memories of the Convent of San Francisco, the desire arose to realize a new project that evoked the times of the Factory, thus creating the opportunity for a new FIO | Memories as Raw Material.

FIO2, based on (and again) the universe of experiences associated with the work at the Wool Factory of Santa Clara, allowed us to give new life and color to stories and generate new memories.

This new FIO2, presented as an artistic project of a strong community and participative nature, guided by the experienced hands that integrate the project A Avó Veio Trabalhar (means something like ‘Grandmother came to work’), an initiative of learning, sharing and empowerment, that through the use of traditional styles and design, increase the power of intervention of seniors in our society.

Itinerant through some of the most emblematic places of the city of Coimbra, capturing the widest of publics, the EMBROIDERY ON PHOTOGRAPHY workshops proposed by FIO2, provided the community construction of unique pieces that tell the story of the local immaterial heritage and, simultaneously, narration of new stories and memories through informal conversations that will come out in an absolutely natural way.

The FIO2 | Memories as Raw Material was the result of a work done by many hands that, once again, were reunited in and for the Convent, discovering memories with new visions and with new colors.

* Fio | Memórias como Matéria-Prima in english means something like Thread | Memories as Raw Material

Public Art Project

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Client

Convento são Francisco | Coimbra City Council

Services

concept, curation, graphic identity, development and production

Location

Coimbra, Portugal


Former

A Avó Veio Trabalhar (Portugal)


Artwork created

Phase 01 - community workshop of embroidery on photography _ 3

Phase 02 - exhibition

Community Workshop: Café Santa Cruz

Community Workshop: Ateneu de Coimbra

Community Workshop: Convento São Francisco

Guided Tour: Por um FIO

Opening FIO2