2025
ARTISTIC RESIDENCY FOR EMERGING YOUNG ARTISTS FROM THE AZORES
2nd Edition – SELECTED ARTIST: MARIA MELO
For the second consecutive year, AVISTAVULCÃO has organised the Artistic Residency for Emerging Young Artists from the Azores.
A project that supports, mentors and promotes the work of young Azorean creators at the start of their careers. It is a one-month artist residency dedicated exclusively to the production of an original project by an emerging artist or collective of artists, either native to or resident in the archipelago.
The selected artist is hosted at the Casa da Missão, where they receive artistic and professional support throughout the creative process, culminating in a public presentation of the work developed.
The aim of this residency, dedicated to young local artists, is to achieve positive outcomes both in terms of the participants’ artistic growth and professional development — providing a boost at the start of their careers and promoting the visibility of the work of rising artists — and in terms of its impact on the local community, which has the opportunity to discover and engage with new artistic languages and emerging talents from the region. Support for artists at the start of their careers is essential to stimulate regional creativity, strengthen professional trajectories linked to the arts, and generate new opportunities in the cultural sector.
MARIA MELO
Born and raised on the island of Faial, she studied painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, undertook an Erasmus exchange at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, and is currently studying Environmental Science.
She is interested in the complexity of organisms and the delicate interconnection of nature, exploring transience and deconstructing the idea of the individual as something static. In addition to the visual arts, Maria Melo enjoys exploring various forms of expression, including music and theatre. She has recently become a nomadic artist, taking part in voluntary work and ecological and sustainable projects, with the aim of bringing her art into contact with environmentalist, community-based and mutual aid ideas.
Maria Melo undertook a one-month artist residency, during which she engaged in an intensive process of research and exploration. Her work focused on experimenting with and producing organic paints and papers, creating a significant body of paintings inspired by the surrounding landscape of Capelo, as well as photographing and recording observations of natural elements that have inspired her artistic journey.
The young artist devoted herself to exploring and creating materials, focusing on producing pigments from local organic resources and making organic recycled paper. For Maria, the ecological nature of her work is not merely a sustainable practice, but a genuine meeting point between art and nature.
Every creative gesture becomes a form of dialogue with the surrounding environment, reflecting the history, culture and biodiversity of the island where she grew up.
It was at AvistaVulcão’s new venue — the Temple of Inspiration — that, over the course of the month, the artist turned the space into her studio, a creative environment completely immersed in nature. Here, artistic creation is not limited to the final object, but extends to the process of discovery and interaction with the materials and the landscape itself.
The connection between art and ecology in Maria’s work reveals a poetic and ethical dimension of creation: every pigment, every sheet of recycled paper, carries with it the memory of the island, becoming a tangible link between the artistic work and the natural world.
The artist’s practice demonstrates how art can become a vehicle for environmental awareness, fostering a deeper and more harmonious relationship with nature, whilst reviving and reinventing traditional techniques and materials in dialogue with the present.
OPEN STUDIO
On Sunday 11 January, the artist opened the doors of the Temple of Inspiration to the community for an Open Studio session, offering an opportunity to experience first-hand the creative processes and the work produced during the residency.
TEMPORARY EXHIBITION
The outcome of the residency took shape and was on display to the public throughout February 2026 at the MicroGaleria Camarupa in the town of Horta, under the title MATÉRIAS
