Vila do Conde: Bobbins, sea and ‘saudade’
- Michelle Lester
- Jan 8, 2023
- 5 min read
1. Memorial to former overseas combatants. By Manuel Sousa Pereira, Eduardo Bompastor and João Macedo
2. A Rendilheira de Vila Do Conde by Ilídio Fontes and Ricca Gonçalves (1993)
3. Seca do Bacalhau Urban Art Mural by Isabel Lhano and Luis Costa (2016)
Joe’s last week before heading back to London’s January drear, and the forecast was for sun, sun and more sun so we popped a pin on the map of the coast between Porto and Viana do Castelo, found somewhere to stay, packed overnight bags along with Monty, and off we went on a minibreak. Adrian and I have been wondering whether we might want to move to the coast next. Both of us have deep and fond memories of our lives in Brighton when we first met, started teaching, bought our first home together – oh, and got married! The beaches here around Porto are typically long and sandy, with impressive surfy waves, and rocky outcrops – very reminiscent of Devon and Cornwall where we’ve spent most of our adult lives together with our boys and my family, who all moved to the SW as we started our own families.
After lunch and a wander around Viana do Castelo – we did not do this place justice so will leave comment for another time! – we arrived at our apartment right next to the Alfândega Régia (Museum of Naval Construction) in Vila do Conde, a really appealing town that claims the second largest aqueduct system in Portugal, and visibly presents this ancient city’s fascinating heritage and compelling expression of saudade* : its men going off to sea (to fight, to trade, to discover – and no doubt usually a mix of all three) leaving the women behind, many of whom took to lace-making as a means to survive, both financially and, I’m sure, through camaraderie.
Joe and Monty at the estuary of the River Ave, Vila do Conde
Our sunset walk along the estuary to the coast took us past a number of artworks and memorials that populate the townscape, and included a powerful, affecting sculpture of a woman (Image 1) sitting with her finger tracing a handwritten note as she looks down the estuary out to sea, her eyes tracing the route taken by the town’s menfolk while simultaneously hoping, you feel, to draw them back in. On a large wall set unceremoniously behind a car park, a colourful mural (Image 3) shows women salting and drying the codfish or bacalhau that is Portugal’s national dish. The mural was painted by a local artist, Isabel Lhano, and her son, Luis Costa in 2016, and covers about 500㎡ of the exterior wall of what was once the Seca do Bacalhou. The words that move like a wave across the painting Este foi o mar das mulheres. Aqui se glorificaram e aqui naufragaram translate in English to This was the sea of women. Here they were glorified and here they were shipwrecked (Walter Hugo Mãe, contemporary artist and writer). The next day, when I took Monty for his morning walk, I passed my favourite of all: A Rendilheira de Vila do Conde (Image 2), a sculpture of a lace-maker, her hands busy with her tools – bobbins balanced on a large cushion -, her face pointed seawards, her broad, strong back greeting all who wander from the Praça de Republica towards the River Ave.
These quiet homages to the town’s women struck me precisely because there’s no fanfare about them, they are just integrated into the town and its streets, and therefore the story Vila do Conde chooses to tell about itself, which in large part seems to be one of the fortitude, creativity, solidarity* and industriousness of its women, along with a large dose of saudade felt as its men sailed off into the unknown. And it struck me, too, how often you see art as part of a civic and urban landscape here – statues, murals, textiles, artefacts – that acknowledge the role played by ordinary people in Portugal. Some have been commissioned by the authorities, but much is just offered up by local artists and craftspeople as part of a shared cultural landscape, another mode of communication between and within communities.
Installation at Praia da Vila Cha. Seen 06/01/2023
It reminds me a bit of Plymouth, that ownership of urban spaces that local artists and craftspeople claim. Working at the Art College there, I got to know about many of the local community projects – the murals, the urban gardens, the eco-aware or consciousness-raising artefacts, the sustainability initiatives – and there was a clear sense that if the government won’t help you/improve your environment, communities get on and do it themselves. What seems different here is that the authorities support and commission so much of this artwork. Of course, there are statues of men on pillars in squares, and roads are named most often after men (albeit often doctors, teachers, artists, writers), but the presence of works that show women as women, and more broadly of working people as working people, not as saints or mythologised figures, feels not only remarkably healthy but just as it should be. It’s a cliche and T-shirt slogan that to exist you need to be seen, but these artworks reminded me just how true this feels. These female figures invite a gaze that is not sexualised but is drawn instead to their occupations and to their state of mind. They do not meet our gaze, but are steadfastly focused on their mission-in-hand, and so they provoke curiosity and connection, rather than empathy or desire: what were these women doing? What were they feeling? Were they contented? Fulfilled? Fearful of the future, or prepared for it? They are of themselves, not of or for us. By providing public spaces for these figures, actual living, breathing working folk might also claim their right to public spaces. I liked Vila do Conde very much for this reason.
*This is a Portuguese word with no direct English equivalent that speaks to a sense of longing, and a feeling that something is missing, that sits deep within Portuguese culture. According to Aeon, popular tradition ties it specifically to the loss and longing felt by the families of men who’d gone off to sea: https://aeon.co/ideas/saudade-the-untranslateable-word-for-the-presence-of-absence
**When King Joao issued an edict banning lace in the mid-18th century, the women of Vila do Conde successfully petitioned him to reverse his decision. The Santa Clara aqueduct was also, apparently, built by the townspeople, frustrated by the refusal of the King (I’m not sure if it was the same one!) to help them access water. They took it upon themselves to build the 4km long aqueduct and then, over time, removed many of its stones to build themselves houses!
#viladoconde #portuguesestreetart #womenandart #portugalmurals #publicspace #saudade #santaclaraaqueduct
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