Aveiro 2027 presents an exhibition around memory

Until August 8, ATLAS Aveiro will host the exhibition “Memory – Aveiro: People, Images and Objects”, curated by Larissa Lewandoski. The exhibition is part of Bairro da Europa [Europe Neighborhood], a project developed by the writer Gonçalo M. Tavares and part of Aveiro’s bid for European Capital of Culture, which comprises an extensive collection of habits, objects, places, languages ​​and many more cultural elements that are disappearing a across Europe, while presenting what has been emerging, such as trends, ideas and technologies.
In a possible summary of this exhibition, Gonçalo M. Tavares states that “it’s not possible to have a future without memory”. This idea underlies the entire exhibition, with the writer adding that “one issue of this project is to place the intangible heritage of all ages at the center of the city”. To this end, several people from Aveiro, of different ages, were interviewed over a month and a half, giving their contribution through objects and photographs, with Gonçalo M. Tavares underlining that “the images, namely the photographs, capture what’s important to remember, what has disappeared. Objects are rapidly losing their functional validity and we want to recover, through this exhibition, their aesthetic validity, because these objects continue to be beautiful despite not being useful. It’s an attempt to revalue the objects of Aveiro’s memory, and includes locations because in some interviews people show pictures of spaces that have been transformed”.
The exhibition also includes several filmed testimonies, which form a documentary under construction, where memories and traditions are being shredded. This comprises stories and songs, which Gonçalo M. Tavares is keen to highlight: “This idea of ​​music as an intangible heritage that is passed on from generation to generation. One of the best examples is the songs and the stories, which parents sing and tell their children, who will later sing and tell their own children.”
This exhibition will be continued by another one at the end of the year, being this second exhibition dedicated to the future, because part of the “Bairro da Europa” project is the establishment of a link between memory and the future.