18.07 — 22.11.2026
EACH DAY IS A NEW RIVER
Each Day Is a New River brings together a selection of documents from Pedro Morais’s estate, particularly materials relating to Atelier Livre AT.RE, which operated from 1979 to 1994 at the António Arroio School. Letters, notices and texts bring us closer to a pedagogical practice in which making, thought, relations and shared experience were understood as inseparable.
According to an account by Pedro Morais, Atelier Livre was born of a provocation by one of the students, Pedro Vasconcelos. With the consent of Artur Baptista, then president of the school board, the atelier occupied a workspace in the basement of António Arroio. From there, AT.RE became a place of experimentation, freedom and rigour. Although admission was by portfolio, the life of the atelier extended far beyond this core group: letters, haiku, shared meals, gatherings, exhibitions, conversations and students from other schools.
The selection presented here does not seek to close off an experience from the past, but to bring a pedagogy in motion into view. Teaching emerges here as a form of relation: between
teacher and students, between artists and interlocutors, between the individual gesture and a working community. Pedro Morais said that he encouraged his students as “a kind of older friend”, provocative at times. That position seems to run through the materials gathered here: what they reveal is less the transmission of a fixed method than the creation of conditions in which each person could find their own way of seeing, making and thinking.
In both his work and his teaching, Pedro Morais understood art as an event. Making meant not only producing a work, but remaining alert to the moment when something might emerge. This attentiveness to what happens — to deviations, small nothings and the unexpected that only reveals itself through making — also informs the way this selection is presented. Each document is more than the record of a path: it is the trace of a relation, a question, a possibility that remains open.
In the horizontal display case, a letter addressed to Pedro Morais and several works given to him reveal the relational dimension of this history. Some are by students of Atelier Livre; others
by artists who shared close ties, correspondence and exchanges with Pedro Morais. In one letter, Francisco Tropa states that “the atelier did not die; it exists in the driving of a nail or the turning of a screw”; in a work on paper, Rui Calçada Bastos writes: “These are the witnesses of time. The stones.” More than expressions of affection, these documents and works reveal the persistence of an experience whose effects extended beyond teaching into the practices, relations and trajectories of those who took part in it or came into contact with it.
The title Each Day Is a New River suggests this continuity through transformation. A river is never the same, even when it keeps its course. This body of material is likewise not presented as static: each document opens up a possible reading, brings a voice back and reactivates a relation. In the Reading Room at Casa da Cerca, the exhibition proposes an encounter with the archive as a living site: each day, still, a new river.
Cláudia Ramos
Horizontal display case
1 Unknown artist, Caixa Wood, paper, ink and small resin billiard balls. 4,5 × 16,5 × 10 cm. n.d.
2 José de Almeida, Atelier Livre AT.RE — Konvite
Paper and ink. 12 × 8,5 cm. 3 May 1982.
3 Rui Calçada Bastos, «São estas as testemunhas do tempo. As pedras.» Oil paint on paper. 9 × 8,4 cm. n.d.
4 Unknown artist, Caixa Wood and pencil. 6 × 9 × 9 cm. n.d.
5 Francisco Tropa, Caixa Wood, stucco plaster, fish scale and eyeshadow. 6 × 13 × 6 cm. n.d.
6 Autor desconhecido, Sem título
Wood. 2,5 cm high × 12,5 cm diameter. n.d.
7 Francisco Tropa, «O atelier não morreu…»
Letter to Pedro Morais, ink and graphite on paper. 8 × 14,5 cm. 1995.
10 Pedro Morais, Missiva / Ilusão-Ego
Paper and ink. 21 × 29,5 cm. 1984.
11 Pedro Morais, Edital — «Este fazer, Arte, é sem refúgio»
Paper and ink. 21 × 29,5 cm. n.d.
12 Pedro Morais, Que a mão no olhar
percorre / Curso Experimental de Artes Plásticas
Paper and ink. 21 × 29,5 cm.
January 1986.
13 Pedro Morais, Que a mão no olhar percorre / Curso Experimental de Artes Plásticas
Paper and ink. 21 × 29,5 cm.
March 1986.
14 Pedro Morais, Que a mão no olhar
percorre / Curso Experimental de Artes Plásticas
Paper and ink. 21 × 29,5 cm.
April 1986.
15 Pedro Morais, Um olhar / Curso Experimental de Artes Plásticas
Paper and ink. 21 × 29,5 cm.
January 1987.
16 Pedro Morais, O eco do olhar / Curso Experimental de Artes Plásticas
Paper, ink and graphite. 21 × 29,5 cm. January 1988.
Central shelves of the cabinets
8 Pedro Morais, Atelier Livre AT.RE — Escola António Arroio [introductory text about the atelier], paper and ink. 21 × 29,5 cm. 1989.
9 Pedro Morais, Edital — «Sem afazeres é este “fazer”»
Paper, ink and graphite. 21 × 29,5 cm. n.d.
17 Pedro Morais, Relatório / Curso Experimental de Artes Plásticas
Paper and ink. 21 × 29,5 cm. 1987–1988.
18 Pedro Morais, De forma a... / Curso Experimental de Artes Plásticas
Paper, ink and graphite. 21 × 29,5 cm. January de 1988.
19 Pedro Morais, Relatório / Curso Experimental de Artes Plásticas
Paper, ink and graphite. 21 × 29,5 cm. 1988–1989.
20 Pedro Morais, Edital — Oval das mãos
Paper, ink and graphite. 21 × 29,5 cm. n.d.
21 Pedro Morais, Edital — «Nem eu, nem tu, nem ele (…)»
Paper, ink and graphite. 21 × 29,5 cm. n.d.
22 Pedro Morais, Edital — «A ignorância crassa (…)»
Paper, ink and graphite. 21 × 29,5 cm. n.d.
23 Pedro Morais, Atelier Livre — Curso Experimental de Artes Plásticas
Paper and ink. 21 × 29,5 cm. 1988–1989.
24 Pedro Morais, Curso Experimental de Artes Plásticas / Atelier Livre AT.RE
Paper, ink, pen and graphite. 21 × 29,5 cm. December 1989.
25 Pedro Morais, «Olhem o sol dia 1 de fevereiro (…)»
Paper and ink. 21 × 29,5 cm. January 1989.
26 Pedro Morais, Edital — «Nada pode cobrir a nudez do fazer...»
Paper and ink. 21 × 29,5 cm. n.d.
27 Pedro Morais, Edital — «Um pai tinha duas filhas...»
Paper and ink. 21 × 29,5 cm. n.d.
28 Pedro Morais, Edital — «Mais importante do que andar é descalçar os sapatos»
Paper and ink. 21 × 29,5 cm. n.d.
29 Pedro Morais, Missiva adiada
Paper and ink. 21 × 29,5 cm. 1992.
Almada City Council Mayor and Culture Councilor
Inês de Medeiros
Social Development
Municipal Director
Eduardo Quinta Nova
Culture Department
Director
Rute Moura
Head of the Contemporary Art Centre
Nuno Moura
Curated by Cláudia Ramos
Production and installation
Ana Taipas
Paulo Ramos
Communication Paula Freire
Administration Support
Carla Novais
Educational Service
Ana Sofia Godinho
Mário Rainha Campos
Sílvia Moreira
Mestre Rogério Ribeiro
Documentation and Research Centre
Ana Margarida Martins
Collection Management
Maria Miguel Cardoso
Botanical Garden
Sónia Francisco
Hugo Ribeiro
Front-of-House
Anabela Almeida
Fernando Simões
Hélder Gonçalves
Júlia Garcia
Tatiana Marques
Victor Borges
CASA DA CERCA
Rua da Cerca, 2800-050 Almada
Т. 212 724 950 casadacerca@cm-almada.pt www.cm-almada.pt/casa-da-cercacentro-de-arte-contemporanea
facebook @festadacasadacerca instagram @casadacerca
Support
Emília Ferreira
Installation support
Divisão de Manutenção de Equipamentos Municipais da CMA
Translation
José Roseira
Graphic design vivóeusébio
Graphic materials production
Original Pixel
Partnership
Banco de Arte
Contemporânea Maria da Graça Carmona e Costa
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