The international collective exhibition “Madrugada – Jewellery and the Politics of Hope” celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution, which put an end to 48 years of dictatorship in Portugal and paved the way for the independence of the former Portuguese colonies in Africa. “Madrugada” owes its name to a beautiful poem by Portuguese poet Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen about the end of the dark days of totalitarianism. Both the poem and the title of this exhibition appeal to that moment of total possibility, of infinite potential that was felt at the dawn of the Revolution. With this inspiration, the focus of this curatorial and educational project is not necessarily to represent, fix or remember the themes of 1974, it is rather to explore this energy, this Madrugada, as a diffractive light that expands to think about the now, while speculating and projecting, anticipating and thus shaping the future.

The objective of this curatorial exercise is to explore jewelry and the act of adorning the body as a political instrument of restructuring, detail, care and activism. The exhibition aims to show the vitality of the political expression of contemporary artistic jewelry, through transgenerational, transdisciplinary and transcultural visions, revealing diverse understandings, in a comprehensive approach to what political jewelry is today. It is pertinent to consider adornment as a political gesture, as reflections of our interconnection with material, conceptual, social, biological and technological structures that can lead us, humans, to reconsider our evolution (and even our revolutions) in ways that are not anthropocentric, which place man at the center of everything. Instead, create decentralization strategies that help us understand the world as a jumble of bodies, identities, objects, forces, knowledge, species and events. By confronting and denouncing major gaps in societies, objects, and in particular jewelry, are not passive agents, but actively mediate our experience of the world as a social and political fabric that, being reparative, permeates emerging ideas and contemporary forms of protest. .

Madrugada's light is immersive, warm and heterogeneous, it is generous in its paths, it provides and aspires to new forms of entanglements between matter, societies, politics and technologies. Madrugada's curatorial team believes that the approximately 90 artists presented, each in their own way, show us, through their capacity for immense work and attention, unique methodologies, which explore adornment as a means of transformation, of intimacies and political spheres , to dream and foreshadow the revolutions of tomorrow.

INFORMATION

Curatorship: Marta Costa Reis, Mònica Gaspar and Patrícia Domingues / Exhibition Design: Nuno Pimenta / Production: MUDE / Graphic design: Studio On Pluto

Participating Artists:

Ada Chen; Adeela Suleman; Alice Floriano; Ana Escobar Saavedra; Anna Avits; Antiwar Medal Exhibition Archive (Mike Holmes and Elizabeth Shypertt); Artificial Intelligems; Auli Laitinen; Benedict Haener; Benjamin Lignel; Beverley Price; Carla Castiajo; Caroline Broadhead; Catarina Silva; Catherine Blackburn; Chequita Nahar; Christoph Zellweger; Clementine Edwards; Conversation Piece (Nicolas Cheng and Beatrice Brovia); Corrina Goutos; Countercurrent Collective; Damara English; Daniel Ramos; David Bielander; Deganit Stern Stocken; Diana Silva; Eija Mustonen; Felieke van der Leest; Fernanda Fragateiro / Paula Paour; Filomeno Pereira de Sousa; Florance Tebbutt; Frank Tjepkema; Gemma Draper; Geraldine Fenn; Gisbert Stach; Gonçalo Camboa; ; Handmedal Project (Iris Eichenberg and Jimena Rios); Helen Britton; Kiseno; Johanna Dahm; Johanna Zellmer; Jonathan Boyd; José Aurélio; Joyce J Scott; La Frontera Exhibition Archive (Mike Holmes and Lorena Lazard); Lauren Kalman; Leonie Damm; Leonor Hipolito; Lin Cheung; Lisa Walker; Lucie Davis; Lucy Ganley; Luis Torres; Luisa Kuschel; Makers Move; Manuel Vilhena; Maria Ignacia Walker; Marilia Maria Mira; Matt Lambert; Masoumeh Rezaeilouyeh; Mengyin Sun; Miles Robinson; Misja Beyers; Naama Levit; Nanna Melland; Nedda Al-Asmar; Paul Derrez; Paula Crespo; Paulo Mendes; Pedro Sequeira; Pio Abad and Frances Wadsworth Jones; Pouya Bakhshi; Ramon Puig Cuyàs; Reka Lorincz; Ruudt Peters; Samantha Vincent; Sophie Hanagarth; Susie Heuberger; Ted Noten; Teresa Milheiro; Timothy Information Limited; Timothy Veske-McMahon; Valerie Hi Ying Ho; Victoria Bulgakova; Vivi Touloumidi; Yotam Bahat.