Fernanda Fragateiro. Breaking Windows with Stones

*Breaking Windows with Stones* is Fernanda Fragateiro’s proposal for the commissioning series for the bridge that links the main building of the Serralves Museum to the Álvaro Siza Wing, inaugurated in October 2023. After the sound work by Luisa Cunha, which opened this programme, the artist presents an installation made up of blocks of lightweight concrete that radically alters the perception of the space.

Suspended from the wall, irregular and asymmetrical, the piece asserts itself as a foreign body within the site’s architectural order. Built from fragments of buildings demolished in central Lisbon, collected over several years, the work brings matter and memory together to reflect on the city’s recent transformations and the effects of gentrification, real estate speculation and tourism pressure. In the corridor, the ensemble functions as both obstacle and image of fragility, letting light and gaze pass through the gaps between the blocks.

The work engages with central themes in Fernanda Fragateiro’s practice since the 1990s, when the artist has worked on architecture, ruin and urban memory, using construction materials and archives outside institutional circuits. Here, the installation also takes on a critical dimension about what is lost with demolition — matter, histories, collective practices and ways of life — and about the way the city reorganizes its own memory.