Cortinas de Seda / Silk Veils

A woman born in 1914 who lived through 2 W Wars, a fascist dictatorship and a Colonial War. She was a victim of violence at home. She challenged fate: to be a village dressmaker. She outdid herself by studying, becoming an entrepreneur and a teacher.

This story is about a woman born in 1914 in a lost village in the Serra do Marão in the north of Portugal. Tresouras.

What do I know about her?

She liked the number 4. Perhaps that's why she was born in month 4 and in a year ending in 4. Strange coincidence, since that same year saw the start of a World War.

She liked to walk around barefoot and splash in water puddles behind her mum's back.

Her teacher wanted her to study, but the need to help at home was more important. She swapped housework with her sisters, which she always hated, for sewing, which she always loved, and which was so much of her life. As a child, and as soon as she began to handle the needle and thread, her entrepreneurial spirit was awakened: she made dolls out of scraps of fabric, which she sold to her friends.

She liked to play tricks, even though she had the serious look of someone who wouldn't hurt a fly.

She had a ticket to go to Brazil. But she didn't go...

It was 1938 and, very surprisingly, he watched an Aurora Borealis. In her words, there were drapes of marvellous silk in the sky, both beautiful and terrifying. In the village they were afraid of the end of the world, she said with a smile.

This woman lived through two World Wars, 50 years of the fascist dictatorship of Oliveira Salazar and Marcelo Caetano, and a Colonial War. She was 40 when she got married to a military career man, was a victim of violence at home, and had two children. A woman who didn't accept the fate she was supposed to have: to be a village dressmaker. She challenged it and went further: she studied, became an entrepreneur and a teacher.

I filled boxes with documents, photographs, letters, ... tangible objects. I called on the memories that each one brought up in me and recorded them.

To help me, I built a timeline from 1914 to 2001 in a notebook. Each page, each year.

I blend images and words and build new ones.

I'm also trying to honour, through her, all the Portuguese women who, in times of dictatorship, defied fate. Her story includes so many other stories of so many other women.