Insofar so good.
➔ Insofar
There’s a city in the north of Portugal founded in the year 16 BC by a Roman emperor. It’s called Braga and that’s where Inês was born. Hugo comes from Barcelos, another city high up north, a bit more recent though (meaning the XII century).
Despite the rich cultural heritage surrounding their roots, Portugal didn’t ground them. Today, between them, they have more than 20 years combined of living abroad, including in countries from Sub Saharan Africa, Australia, but also European cities like London.
Will it blend?
“Diversity has always existed”, Hugo states.
Yes, but today, for societal reasons, there’s a higher public demand for representation and integration - and it’s quite obvious that Insofar has that engraved in its DNA.
Described as the sum of its artist’s identities, Insofar is international, diverse, often giving stage and context to artists from peripheral countries with less access to contemporary art circuits.
As Hugo tells us, “Inês puts a lot of attention in the narratives around the cultures of the places where the artists we represent come from. We were surprised by that and we expect the people who follow the gallery can be surprised as well. That’s our mission”.
Enter the artists
The first exhibition at Insofar, in September 2021, was from Edson Chagas. A photographer from Angola, he was the first African artist to ever win the Venice Biennale, back in 2013.
From Angola, Insofar also represents the painter Cristiano Mangovo and multidisciplinary artist António Ole. From Argentina, the photographer and human rights activist Marcelo Brodsky. From Palestine, multidisciplinary artist denouncing occupation Khaled Jarrar. From the Philippines, a feminist lens from Nikki Luna. From South Africa, the photographer and painter Graem Williams who is known for capturing the transition from to democracy and from his documentaries post-apartheid.
From Portugal, Insofar features the renowned Miguel Palma. “He liked the grit in this project. He liked it enough to let us borrow his name, which was very generous”, Hugo explains.
For a recently founded gallery, it does take boldness to attract such an impressive list of artists, so soon.
There's more to the facade
Another Portuguese artist you can buy through Insofar is Isaque Pinheiro. He was the first to be invited to exhibit his work on the facade of Insofar.
As Hugo puts it, “our work process is also a creative process. There’s a dissatisfaction that drives us to challenge stereotypes, do things differently and address global audiences - as opposed to communicating inside a white cube, which is what we had inside the gallery”. That’s why he and Inês decided to start reexamining the concept of the white cube.
"People are scared to come in. People dress up and do their hair to come to the gallery”, Inês tells us.
From that reflection, a year-long programme was created with several exhibitions on the outside wall of the gallery. Calling it Projeto Fachada [Facade Project] was, of course, a provocation, since it also means something very superficial, a fake, a sham. It’s not a coincidence that the first exhibition, from Isaque, dwelled on the national court system.
That’s also why they partnered with Factory Lisbon, where you can currently see several of the works from artists Insofar represents - including the facade piece by Isaque Pinheiro [in the picture]: “we want to reach out to the people in different places from the gallery and we think Factory and HCB are also courageous projects inside the city, with whom we are happy to partner”.
A cluster of galleries
Insofar gallery is located on Rua Capitão Leitão, in the neighboring Marvila district, where 5 galleries have now settled in. These galleries still don't coordinate their openings, like we see in Porto (Rua Miguel Bombarda), where dozens of galleries and venues collaborate to offer additional activities for the families, once a month.
Hugo considers “variety is good to bring people back, but we believe in reaching out to families, especially children. Art can be highly educational. And according to Gulbenkian’s 2020 report, 95% of all people never walked into a gallery or a museum, so we need to invest in younger generations if we want to change the habits of culture consumption”.
Concentration apart, the other reason that brought Insofar to this part of town is a feeling of admiration for what is happening here. Everytime Hugo and Inês take friends and collectors to the Factory building they are surprised, since until very recently it was an abandoned part of town, with lots of factories that weren’t producing anymore. “I appreciate the vision and the dynamics that the 3 mayors already involved want to create here, but also the players who are already here - like Factory, Praça and the others currently moving in.
"This kind of placemaking does not shift the center of the city but it makes it become more diverse in its core"
It allows to integrate peripheral left-behind neighborhoods and increase human interaction across social, cultural and generational gaps”, Hugo says.
Down by the water
Since the 1960s there have been talks about removing the cargo port from this part of town but today people still have to live with a several kms wall of freight containers between the city and the river and with hundreds of logistics trucks coming into the city.
"The project for Beato can double in size, let's wait and see. But the riverside should be for the people - and art should have a role there too"
Hugo and Inês have been here for a few years now, and both admit to see small changes happening, like access in Braço de Praça, and alternatives being studied for the freight cargo activity. "But now politicians need to negotiate how to remove this activity from the riverside, the Lisbon Port Authority needs to allow for it and then, in the next 20 years, we need to make the city come back to life between Alcântara to Parque das Nações. The project for Beato can double in size, let's wait and see. But the riverside should be for the people - and art should have a role there too. We want to be a part of that movement and we hope to have some news about that soon…”.
