PEDRO FEIO AND FRANCISCO DOS SANTOS
Farelos de Giões

Farelos de Giões, the artistic residence held in space, Farelos and Giões, Alcoutim, Faro, and in time the first two weeks of February 2025, hosted the artists Pedro Feio and Francisco Damascêno dos Santos, with the aim of providing them with precisely that: the space and time for artistic creation uninterrupted by everyday life. Staying overnight in the old house of the giant of Farelos and with a dedicated studio in the former primary school of Giões, the artists were able to experience life similar to that of the few locals who live there at this time of year. The days and nights they spent there were transposed into their works; the art, in the speculative manner of metaphysics, felt like a force acting upon us. In our journeys, in the people, in the public to whom they are shown, everyone felt it, feels it or will feel it in one way or another, even if they are unaware of it.
The manifestation of being takes place through language. The establishment of dialogues—whether coherent or incoherent—between the works of art presented here, with varying degrees of veracity, performs, in the act of their comprehension, functions and qualities similar to those exercised by the languages expressed during the two-week residency. Bringing continuity to a body of work that took place specifically there and is now here, never in the same form, but with the same premises. It is true that the works speak for the artists, and this is intrinsic to their work; both thus reveal their being, hidden within the very language they choose to use. In the art they create. In a shifting between constant presence and absence, in a context that seems detached from each individual’s personal temporality and which is bound to the collection of works on display and to all the pieces created in this project.
May they, upon looking at them, be able to perceive the scent that pervades that region.
May they, in a subtle experience, be able to meticulously sift through the crumbs (farelos) of Giões.
-Duarte Alho