Fernanda Fragateiro has been developing the Em Bruto: Relações Comoventes project since 2020, in which the artist’s studio and the exhibition site create a unique connection. The creative process and its outcome come together in the museum setting, with each new presentation creating a different dialogue with the venue’s architecture. This time the new relationships take place at CCB.

The beams, easels and bars are where Fernanda Fragateiro finds the plasticity to reflect on architecture. However, before we get to this outcome, found in the last two rooms of the exhibition, the artist tells us about her process.

The first room, in boxes which also resemble tables, is where Fernanda Fragateiro gathers a set of books, articles, magazines, colour maps, photos and materials previously used in other works. This assembly of material started in 2015 and since then it has been undergoing open and constant metamorphosis. Spread around the room in a constellation layout, the boxes function as an archive illustrating the artist’s creative process, enlightening us on her aesthetic, philosophical, political and poetic concerns. For instance, we see the book Angela: Portrait of a Revolution, about Angela Davis, writer and activist, or Domicile: The Global Destruction of Home, by Douglas Porteous and Sandra E. Smith, a collection of case studies and stories about the destruction of the house as a home. Although some of the boxes are sealed, others are slightly open, exposing segments of the objects they contain. The artist calls this set of pieces Materials Lab.

As Alfredo Puente, the exhibition’s curator, says: “The first time I encountered the open boxes in Materials Lab – an archipelago of images and structures exhibited under the light by Fernanda Fragateiro as the poetics of her research field – I had an intense «sensation of landscape»”[1].

The following room acts as a small library, inviting the viewer to delve into the books displayed on a wide table, which had previously been mentioned in the Materials Lab installation. Now we can touch, leaf through and read what we had previously seen. These are mainly theoretical texts on architecture, musings on space and the feminine, the city and modernity, as well as catalogues of earlier exhibitions by Fragateiro. In this very spot, one can hear Nina Simone’s voice playing on a small radio.

From the chain of references into which we have just plunged, we understand that there is a direct alliance between architecture and social and political issues for the artist.

Having come to terms with Fernanda Fragateiro’s processes, references and motivations, we then move on to her output, shown in the last two exhibition rooms. This is where we find Estaleiro (2022), a large installation consisting of twenty-two sculptures made up of beams, easels, ladders, jack stands, lacquered iron and Nordic pine structures. The sculptures take on different compositions, with variations in the number of wooden beams they use. Some are horizontal and others more vertical. The poetic is to be found in the words that form part of each of the sculptures, in which the text on the wood contains the title of every book that we have previously immersed ourselves in. Fernanda Fragateiro’s theoretical references, which she introduced to us throughout the exhibition, materialise now in sculptures. These include names such as the architects Lina Bo Bardi and Eillen Gray or the architect Le Corbusier, important figures in the artist’s career.

Shipyards are places constructed by the sea or river to build or repair ships, with sturdy structures capable of holding massive weights. The word’s etymological origin, on the other hand, gives us another perspective on its meaning. Shipyard comes from the Old French astelier,[2] meaning pile of wood. Today, the French atelier means workshop.

As we walk through the rooms, we can see the processes that underpin Fernanda Fragateiro’s work. The raw materials, studies and books that normally never leave the studio now occupy the museum grounds. The studio that we visited in the first two rooms is turned into a building site in the last two, with the materiality of the latter giving continuity to the former. Shipyards build and repair, just like the studio. And both are intimately connected by their etymological origin.

Em Bruto: Relações Comoventes is on show at CCB until September 10, 2023.

[1] Quote by Alfredo Puente taken from the exhibition room text of Em Bruto: Relações Comoventes

[2] ciberduvidas.iscte-iul.pt. (n.d.). A origem do substantivo estaleiro – Ciberdúvidas da Língua Portuguesa. [online] Available in: https://ciberduvidas.iscte-iul.pt/consultorio/perguntas/a-origem-do-substantivo-estaleiro/32939