Morte Adivinhada - Valter Vinagre
04.02-15.03.2024
The photographic exhibition by photographer Valter Vinagre [Predicted Death] documents the construction and demolition of a community center at Bairro da Jamaica. At the opening there was a debate with Helena Roseta, National Coordinator of the 1st edition of the Healthy Neighborhoods program; Marcos Injai and Paulo Biague, representatives of ADSCV - the residents' association; Jannis Kuhne and Simone Frangella, from the Chão - Ethnography Urban Workshop collective, and moderated by Paulo Moreira.
"On the morning of October 18, 2023, the headquarters of the Vale de Chícharos Social Development Association, in Bairro da Jamaica, was demolished. The building was in the final stages of redevelopment, after a long and troubled process, which had begun precisely three years earlier, as part of the Healthy Neighborhoods Program - a public initiative aimed at improving the quality of life in vulnerable territories, which had been launched on October 16, 2020. The participatory nature of the program motivated the joining of forces to draw up an application, integrating ADSVC and partners with experience in contexts of social and spatial deprivation, CHÃO - Ethnography Urban Workshop, and INSTITUTO as coordinator of the design team, paulo moreira architectures.
The fate of this neighborhood in Seixal had long been sealed. But little was known at the time about the deadlines and conditions for rehousing. Faced with this uncertainty, which had dragged on for too many years, the intention was to rehabilitate a building that was essential to the collective life of the neighborhood, where residents' meetings and associative and educational activities usually took place. The aim was to transform the precarious headquarters into a Community Center for the social and cultural development of the community. It was hoped to create minimum conditions of dignity for the population by improving the interior space of the headquarters and replacing the contaminating materials of the roof with a new, removable structure that extended to the outside.
From an early stage, the work suffered setbacks in its normal progress, like a snowball effect. Work was suspended and restarted, to the rhythm of an infuriating web of bureaucracy, missed deadlines, broken commitments by the contractor, you name it. Despite the difficulties, the bonds between the partners remained intact. Thanks to this collective motivation, the work was finally due to be completed soon, and hopefully without further incident. But time had passed and the context had changed: the work was being completed at the same time as the announced dismantling of the Jamaica neighborhood. The work was coming to life while its surroundings were being demolished.
It was then that Seixal Town Hall decided to put an end to this apparent incongruity by going ahead with the demolition, without warning. It was an expected death but for an unexpected reason. Valter Vinagre's photographs record and denounce this beautiful and collaborative, difficult and tragic case."
Paulo Moreira
January 2024
Fotos: Barbara Gocníková
Support: DG Artes/Ministério da Cultura e Criatório
