Ar.Co – Bolseiros & Finalistas’24, at Torreão Nascente da Cordoaria Nacional

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DATE

08 Jan 2026

AUTHOR

Maria Inês Augusto

Ar.Co – Bolseiros & Finalistas’24, at Torreão Nascente da Cordoaria Nacional

AUTHOR

Maria Inês Augusto

The exhibition Ar.Co – Bolseiros & Finalistas’24 (Ar.Co – Scholarships & Finalists '24), on display at Torreão Nascente da Cordoaria Nacional in Lisbon, is part of a long tradition of public exhibitions promoted by Ar.Co – Center for Art and Visual Communication. The exhibition presents a selection of works by scholarship holders and final-year students from the 2023/24 academic year and provides an overview of the paths taken in the school's educational context, as well as a possible snapshot—albeit partial and situated—of emerging artistic practices in Portugal.

For more than five decades, Ar.Co, as an independent art school, has been promoting a pedagogical model based on experimentation, interdisciplinarity, and critical thinking. Its mission combines training, research, and dissemination in the fields of arts and visual communication, promoting a learning environment that values the acquisition of technical skills, conceptual reflection, and questioning of the creative processes themselves. This pedagogical framework is evident in this exhibition, which is not limited to presenting final results, but highlights ongoing research, authorial positions, and diverse methodologies.

Selected works brought together in the exhibition reveal a diversity of languages, materials, and approaches. Painting, digital drawing, jewelry, photography, ceramics, objects, and other artistic practices coexist in the exhibition space, reflecting a broad understanding of contemporary art as an expanded and plural field. Works such as Vaca (2025), by Afonso Alves, O Nascimento de uma Estrela (2025), by Marta Baptista, and Clamp (2024), by Vivianne Kiritani, illustrate different formal and conceptual strategies, highlighting investigations that traverse issues of image, materiality, and symbolism.

This disciplinary heterogeneity allows us to observe—and perhaps guess—both emerging trends and conceptual affinities between different projects. Several proposals highlight an interest in exploring materials and technical processes, where experimental practice plays a central role in constructing meaning. Others take a more narrative or symbolic approach, addressing themes such as identity, memory, body, or perception. Rui F. Oliveira's photography, Manuela Falcão's ceramics, and Sara & Tralha's sets of objects exemplify different ways of addressing these concerns, demonstrating the artists' ability to articulate form and content in distinct ways.

Participating artists — Afonso Alves, Ana Pereira, Beatriz Correia, Bianca Silveira, Carlos Simões, Filipa Homem, Francisca Jardim, Jónatas Rodrigues, José Pedro Soares, Luís Sequeira, Madalena Fezas Vital, Manuela Falcão, Margarida Norton de Matos, Marta Baptista, Marta Martins, Martin Wolfson, Monika Pietryga, Olívia Borges, Paula Badala, Paula Zerbes, Rui F. Oliveira, Sara & Tralha, Sónia Cruz, Teresa Champalimaud, Teresa Supico, Tiago Xavier, Vivianne Kiritani, and Yemiliia Tsarkova—present research projects that seek to establish their own authorial voice.

Collectively, the proposals create a relational field that encourages dialogue between the works. This dynamic makes it possible to recognize continuities and/or contrasts that characterize the artistic production carried out by these finalists and scholarship recipients, each of whom explores territories that are more or less experimental, conceptually rigorous, or open to interpretation.

Ar.Co – Bolseiros & Finalistas’24 is a moment of visibility and reflection for the participating artists, offering a possible interpretation of the practices developed at Ar.Co. Through different approaches, languages, and positions, the exhibition highlights the coexistence of processes and intentions, reflecting both the institution's pedagogical framework and the greater or lesser autonomy and risk of each artistic practice, leaving open its interpretations and future projections in the contemporary art scene.

The exhibition can be visited until January 18th, 2026.

BIOGRAPHY

Maria Inês Augusto, 34, has a degree in Art History. She worked at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC) in the Educational Services department as a trainee and for 9 years at the Palácio do Correio Velho as an appraiser and cataloguer of works of art and collecting. She took part in the Postgraduate Programme in Art Markets at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of Universidade Nova de Lisboa as a guest lecturer for several editions and collaborated with BoCA - Bienal de Artes Contemporâneas in 2023. She is currently working on an Art Advisory and curatorial project, collaborating with Teatro do Vestido in production assistance and has been producing different types of text.

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