Miguel Januário, doctoral candidate at ID+ U.Porto, inaugurates artwork in the Council of State Room at Belém Palace: https://www.facebook.com/miguel.januario.148/posts/pfbid02V2ELDD46d6QgTcTmrYGA6EbH9PSRAnJPJE3HSRaL7iNyzLF65CnpgFWCgqtouzC7l .

The piece forms part of a recent set of acquisitions by the Museum of the Presidency.

“Povo”

Acquired by the Museum of the Presidency, this piece is now integrated into the Council of State Room at Belém Palace.

Amid a field of painted carnation petals, the phrase “the defeated people will never be united” invites an unsettling reading of the increasingly fragile triangulation between democracy, representation and power. By inverting a slogan historically associated with collective resistance, the work reveals the vulnerabilities that emerge from the ongoing fragmentation of Portuguese society and from the inevitable ageing of democracy itself.

Within the Council of State Room, this modest work assumes a particular gravity. Between the memory of an April whose promises seem ever more distant from fulfilment, the closing of a presidential cycle and the persistent spectre of the return of “other times” that still looms over the present, there is little here to celebrate. What may remain is perhaps only an echo of resistance – one that, though apparently domesticated, quietly challenges those who deliberate and decide within this room. Alternatively, it may be read as a form of consecration that stubbornly reveals, consciously and without ornament, our shared fragilities.

This acquisition forms part of a broader group of works by Ana Aragão, Alice Marcelino, Ana Malta, Francisco Vidal, Fidel Évora, João Amado, Marta Pinto Machado, Mantraste + Associação de Moradores do PER11, ±MaisMenos±, Pantonio, and Unidigrazz. Special thanks are due to Vhils, Carla Cardoso and the Museum of the Presidency for enabling the presence of contemporary art – and its concerns – within this space of representation and decision.