• Art, life and community

    Espaço Grilo

journal

 
15 / 09 / 2016
Tomás was born in a family of artists and, despite having had one foot in the academic life, he never conceived a different kind of profession. Yet Sofia tried “a serious life”, she worked as a social worker and as a group analyst, then as a journalist, but she eventually transformed her painting hobby into a profession. Tomás and Sofia are both artists, and they are husband and wife. They both like a multidisciplinary art and unconventional concepts. They have some work in common, but above all they work individually, despite the contamination being inevitable.
They had worked in several places before: they occupied a part of the Bernardas Convent, in Tangier they transformed an old fishmonger’s into a studio, and the last place they worked in was their neighbour’s large apartment before being refurbished. After that they did not want to work once again at home, and they decided to look for a new space. And they were delighted with the farm-like gate of the garden in this warehouse in Xabregas.
Once they rented the warehouse, the concept began to take shape. It was too big for them to be working there alone. So they began doing in a structured way what they had actually already been doing in their own home: they always had their doors open, friends came by for dinner, foreign artists used to stay for long periods. Thus was born Grilo, a dynamic and collaborative space. They rent studios, they receive artists in residence, they host volunteers, and they organize dinners and parties. They work individually and as a team, but it’s always changing shape and somewhat ephemeral: the artists come and go, they have their autonomy, develop their work and contribute each in their own way to Grilo’s day-to-day, for example in the kitchen or in the garden. The organization is fluid, each have their own agendas and schedules, there are no defined hierarchies. When they host dinners, which are themselves an aesthetic and artistic experience, the artists do the cooking, decorate the tables, serve the carefully prepared dishes.


Read the full story in the printed version of Attitude #71 Art Report

Photos: Carlos Cezanne
Text: Joana Ramalho 

Lisbon, Portugal

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