ARTISTIC RESIDENCY 1 > 11 OCT - Faro and Loulé MASTERCLASS 5 OCT 18h00 - Associação 289, Faro + info and registration HERE
Pauliana Valente Pimentel began portraying some Gipsy families in the Algarve in 2019, especially in the areas of Castro Marim and Vila Real de Santo António – fascinated by how these families keep their century old traditions and their nomad way of living.
In Portugal, Roma communities continue to be discriminated against and live in the outskirts of general society, with poor housing conditions, low education levels and high unemployment rates, as a report from the European Council disclosed in January 2020.
In this residency, Pauliana’s intention is to continue portraying these communities in the Algarve, now covering the areas of Loulé and Faro.
With this work, the photographer intents to show these families’ daily lives, emphasizing their traditions, with the purpose of fighting preconceived notions as well as racist and xenophobe stereotypes, which constantly target these communities.
The outcome will be an exhibition to take place at the Festival’s edition in 2021.
Pauliana Valente Pimentel was born in Lisbon 1975, the city where she still lives, although working a little bit all over the world.
As a visual artist and freelance photographer, she does photojournalism since 1999 for several newspapers and magazines, as well as individual and collective exhibitions in Portugal and abroad – Spain, Italy, England, Germany, Greece, Turkey, USA, China, Morocco, and Cape Verde.
In 2005 she participated in the photography course from Gulbenkian Creativity and Artistic Creation Programme. She was part of the [Kameraphoto] collective from 2006 until its extinction in 2014. In 2016 she founds the N’WE collective.
She is an Author Photography teacher in both Restart and Etic schools, teaching workshops of “Photography Narratives” regularly.
VOL I, her first author book, was published by Pierre von Kleist in 2009, Caucase, Souvenirs de Voyage was published by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in 2011 and Quel Pedra by Camera Infinita, Narcisismo das Pequenas Diferenças by the City of Lisbon Council’s Municipal Archive in 2018.
She directed the films: Diz-se que Portugal é um bom país para se viver (2011), Youth of Athens (2012), Entre Nous (2014), Quel Pedra (2014), Al Bidayer (2017).
In 2015 she won the Visual Arts award for best photo work of the year, The Passenger, by Portuguese Author Society. In 2016 she was nominated for the “NOVO BANCO” Photo Award, for the series The Behaviour of Being, having presented Quel Pedra at Berardo Museum.
She was represented at Galeria 3+1 Contemporary Art for 5 years, and represented by the Galeria das Salgadeiras in Lisbon for 7 years. She is currently a part of Galeria Sala 117 at Oporto, and she collaborates with several national and international galleries.
Part of her work belongs to private and institutional collectors, such as Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Partex, EDP Foundation, MAAT and NovoBanco.