The CERA PROJECT is pleased to announce the collaborative artistic research residency of artist Rui Macedo and the curator Inês Valle, supported by the Direção-Geral das Artes. The residency, “Boundless Borders”, forms part of the Restoration and Valorisation Project of the Sala das Descobertas (Chamber of Discoveries) at the Palácio Nacional de Mafra, which is coordinated by Dr Sérgio Gorjão and promoted by Museus e Monumentos de Portugal, with support from the Fundação Millennium BCP.

During their residency at the CERA PROJECT, they will expand their research on the twelve Portuguese paintings from the late eighteenth century, formerly part of the royal collection of the Palácio Nacional de Mafra and missing since the early 19th-century, which depict the voyage and arrival of the Portuguese in India. The absence of these works has served as the starting point for a critical reflection on the historical narratives associated with the first contact between Portugal and India and their reverberations in the present day.

To further this research, Rui Macedo and Inês Valle apply artistic and participatory methodologies that intersect contemporary co-creation and cultural mediation. This approach involves exploring museum collections in Portugal and India alongside engaging with local communities in areas with historical links to both countries, particularly those associated with the locations identified in the missing paintings: Goa, Kozhikode, Ponnani, Kochi and Diu.

This artistic process places listening and collaboration with these communities at its core, structuring a contemporary reinterpretation of the Sala das Descobertas, where issues of identity, power, colonisation, and cultural borders are reflected. Thus, the project proposed for the residency constitutes an opportunity to deepen and share knowledge by fostering a cross-cutting understanding of historical and cultural diversity.

Taking the form of a transdisciplinary, multi-local programme oriented towards intercultural dialogue and shared research, the proposal will include talks and participatory sessions with communities, a video documentary, and a publication.

This residency programme has the support of Palácio Nacional de Mafra and DGArtes.

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Rui Macedo (Évora, 1975) is a Portuguese visual artist working exclusively in painting and site-specific painting installations. He holds a PhD in Painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon (2017). His practice interrogates the conventions of painting as both medium and exhibition form, challenging traditional notions of representation and authorship. Through perceptual strategies that unsettle the viewer’s expectations, Macedo expands the conceptual and spatial boundaries of painting, often creating works that resist conventional definitions of the medium. He has received prestigious institutional support, including grants from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Instituto Camões, the Spanish Ministry of Culture, and FCT/CIEBA. His work has been presented in exhibitions at institutions such as Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea – Museu do Chiado (Lisbon), MEIAC (Badajoz), Museu do Neorrealismo, Tabacalera (Madrid), and Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói (Brazil). His works are held in prominent public and institutional collections across Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Brazil, including the Portuguese State Art Collection, Culturgest, MNAC, IVAM, MEIAC, and the Benetton Foundation.

www.ruimacedo.com

Inês Valle is a curator, artist, and creative producer whose practice is driven by international and interdisciplinary collaboration. She holds a BA in Fine Arts (Painting) and an MA in Curatorial Studies from the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lisbon. She is the founder of The CERA PROJECT, a non-profit cultural organisation that fosters artistic dialogue between the Global North and South, promoting narratives beyond Western frameworks. Valle has collaborated with leading institutions, including Centro Cultural de Belém, Museu Coleção Berardo, CAM – Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian, Canberra Contemporary Art, the National Museum of Lagos, and Artspace Aotearoa. At CAM Gulbenkian, she coordinated the Portuguese strand of the European lighthouse project Bauhaus of the Seas Sails. Her curatorial work spans mainly Europe, Africa and the Middle East and includes exhibitions with artists such as Ângela Ferreira, António Ole, Ai Weiwei, Edson Chagas, Pablo Bartholomew, Fábio Colaço, Marcelo Brodsky, Miguel Palma, Nikki Luna, Khaled Jarrar and Graeme Williams. Increasingly, her projects emphasise co-creation, community engagement, and transdisciplinary research, addressing questions of identity, ecology, postcolonial memory, and urban transformation.

www.inesvalle.com