2024
Emerging Local Artist Residency – 1st Edition
The first edition of this residency program, designed to support the creative work of emerging local artists, aimed to promote and support contemporary artistic production within the Faial region.
The artist selected for this edition was André Carreiro Oliveira , A native of the Ribeirinha parish on Faial and a student at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon. During December 2024, André was in an artist residency at Casa da Missão in Capelo, where he developed and produced his first public solo exhibition, titled VERDADE MISTA.
The resulting exhibition—comprising installation, video, and sculpture—reflected an authorial and experimental approach, exploring issues of identity, memory, and materiality through the artist’s personal experience and the local context. The exhibition was on view for two months in the exhibition hall of the João José da Graça Public Library and Regional Archive in the city of Horta.
The opening took place in December 2024, marking the start of the exhibition with the artist and the local community in attendance. The closing event, in February 2025, marked the end of the cycle with the launch of the artist’s catalog, a publication that documents the creative process and the works presented, and includes critical texts that contextualize André Carreiro Oliveira’s work.
This residency marked not only an important milestone in the young artist’s career but also reaffirms the importance of creating programs that provide ongoing support for artistic creation in the Azores, fostering emerging talent and strengthening the connection between contemporary art and the local community.
The support program for emerging Azorean artists aims to create concrete opportunities for young artists to develop their projects in an environment of research, experimentation, and sharing with the community.
In 2024, while studying Fine Arts and with the support of his tutors, the artist began preparing three cast-lead sculptures titled “3 Chorosas,” and in December, already based at Capelo, in the AvistaVulcão space, he completed his work with a site-specific installation titled “Tímpano” and “Assemblage,” and a video art piece titled “Cova Negra” accompanied by a sound piece titled “Possível fase subaquática de um vulcão.”
In his sculptural work “3 Chorosas,” he brings to life a naturalistic and highly metaphorical alchemy, drawing on the irregular and unique forms of volcanic bombs (drops of lava, filled with air, expelled from the mouth of an erupting volcano which, upon contact with the ground, roll across the surface, thus taking on a rounded shape) and replicating these unpredictable forms of nature with other heavy materials, in a solid lead casting—a material used in World War II to manufacture cannonballs. Thus, one looks upon the sins of human action through the gestures of nature.
In the video work “Cova Negra,” the artist’s gesture is transformed, becoming the alter ego of a volcano itself: from the beauty of chaos, from materialism to dreams, from journey to permanence, from concrete stone to digital record.
The creation of the site-specific installations “Tímpano” and “Assemblage,” accompanied by the soundscape “Possible underwater phase of a volcano,” invites the public to enter the artist’s universe, making the exhibition immersive and sensory.
The exhibition *Verdade Mista* is a journey into the volcano’s subconscious, an allegory of a perspective on the world. The work is influenced by the artist’s relationship between the place where he was born—an island shaped by volcanic activity—and the world beyond the island, which is global and digital.
VERNISSAGE NA BIBLIOTECA PÚBLICA E ARUIVO REGIONAL - HORTA, FAIAL
CATALOG PUBLICATION
In partnership with Biblioteca Pública e Arquivo Regional João José da Graça
In addition to his artist residency and the staging of his first solo exhibition, artist André Carreiro Oliveira led two cultural outreach activities with the school community on the island of Faial, reinforcing the project’s educational and inclusive nature.
As part of the National Arts Plan, André conducted two visual arts workshops with students from the Horta Integrated Elementary School (EBI Horta). These workshops were designed as opportunities for experimentation and artistic discovery, where students had the chance to explore different materials and artistic techniques, drawing inspiration from the artist’s practice and career. The sessions fostered creativity, individual expression, and critical thinking among participants, encouraging direct engagement with contemporary creative processes.
In addition, the artist welcomed students from the Horta Vocational School for a guided tour of the exhibition “Verdade Mista,” followed by an open discussion. This meeting allowed the young people to gain an in-depth understanding of the process of designing and setting up an exhibition, as well as the themes addressed in the works. The exchange of ideas with the artist fostered a dialogue about the role of art in society, career paths in the visual arts, and the creative possibilities available within the local context.
These initiatives extend the impact of the residency beyond the exhibition space, contributing to the cultural education of young people, bringing them closer to contemporary art, and highlighting the emerging talent produced on the island itself.
André Carreiro Oliveira was born in 2001 on the island of Faial, in the parish of Ribeirinha. On the island, he attended the Visual Arts class at Manuel de Arriaga Secondary School, later completing his secondary education at the “Árvore” technical, artistic, and vocational school in the city of Porto, where he deepened his interests in video, screen printing, and graphic design. He then spent a year in Seville, Spain, working in photography. In 2023, he returned to Portugal to enroll in the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Lisbon, where he is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Sculpture.
