O que conta é a intenção
It is the intention that matters
Beatriz Manteigas
O que conta é a intenção
Beatriz Manteigas
Beatriz Manteigas is the invited artist for 2025 at the Artistic Residency at O Chão das Artes —Botanical Garden, which is materialised in the site-specific installation of the Painters’ Garden and the Greenhouse exhibition.
It is the intention that matters is the result of theoretical-practical research started in 2023, devoted to the intersection between art and ecology, in which the artist visually explores the cross-contamination between different realities of her life: her figurative work, her doctoral research in Drawing, and her associated work as co-founder and director of the Quinta das Relvas Association (a not-for-profit organisation aimed at informal education in the arts and sustainability through permaculture).
Beatriz Manteigas interviewed by Linda Weintraub
APRIL 2025
My four-year acquaintance with Beatriz Manteigas began eighteen years too late. By then, my own Permaculture practice had evolved into a thriving homestead where pigs, sheep, ducks, geese, chickens, turkeys, fish, rabbits, pheasants, and bees cohabited amid orchards, berry patches, herb plots, veggie gardens, and mushroom logs surrounded by a meadow, woods, and stream where habitat was provided for wildlife. Now, finally, I have been granted the long-awaited opportunity to address a question that has nagged and intrigued me for twenty-two years: Are Permaculture principles applicable to art?
The following interview reveals that my stunted self-inquiries finally ripened in the fertile environment of Beatriz Manteigas’s mind. Beatriz is a permaculturist and an artist. She aligns these practices as NGO Director and Arts’ department coordinator of the Permaculture farm and artist residency program at Quinta das Relvas Association in Branca, Portugal. The following text reveals that she is also an astute conceptualizer and creative problem-solver. The strategies she has devised for merging art and Permaculture demanded flexing and stretching art’s customary parameters. Her own art practices embody the insights and inspiration she gleaned from Permaculture. They not only satisfy my decades-long ponderings, they offer guidance to those whose Permaculture /art journey is just commencing.
Let us begin by exploring your initial introduction to Permaculture, which seems remote from your academic accomplishments: a PhD in Drawing at the Faculty of Fine Arts, a Master’s degree in Artistic Anatomy, and an undergraduate degree in Painting, as well as serving as a collaborating researcher at the Center for Research and Studies in Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon. How did Permaculture factor into your committed practices?
I first came into contact with Permaculture the way many people do: as a set of principles designed to help humans build and rethink settlements toward more resilient ecosystems aligned with the natural world. That initial encounter eventually led to a Permaculture certification. From the start, I was deeply curious about the role of Art within Permaculture, since my broad understanding of Art seemed so obviously aligned with Permaculture’s goals. However, I quickly realized that it was difficult to share my point of view. When you take Permaculture “by the book,” Art is often reduced to an aesthetic approach that mimics or is informed by natural patterns, which are then applied to design solutions. I’ve been pretty obsessed with broadening that understanding of Art within Permaculture—both through my individual artistic practice and my work as an activist and NGO director.
Please explain how Permaculture principles can be applied to art.
I see Permaculture as a way of being in relationship with everything that surrounds me. It feels like a universal language of energy, matter, time, and space that promotes syntropy without demanding mastery of any of these concepts. That’s what I love most about Permaculture —or at least how I’ve come to understand it: it avoids any will to control others, even in scientific terms. Contemporary science and knowledge have become a kind of currency —traded, copyrighted, and enforced by elites as universal truths that are only overturned by other truths of the same nature. In contrast, Permaculture serves as a guide for how to relate, prioritizing not what you know, but what you continuously observe.
Brazilians would say that you become antenado —“in tune.” And it’s a beautiful word, not drawn from music but from insect antennas, emphasizing an embodied attentiveness.
Your comments regarding relinquishing “control”, abandoning “mastery”, and “tuning in” are radical reversals of Western art conventions. Within that tradition, art, like science and knowledge, is “traded, copyrighted, and enforced by elites.”
Furthermore, you explain that applying Permaculture principles to art involves being ‘in tune’, ‘relating’, and ‘observing’, which further deviates from the artworks esteemed within Euro-centric traditions. They celebrate self-expression, virtuosity, and originality. How do these factors affect the process of creating art? Does tuning, relating, and observing apply to viewers of your artworks as well? Please describe how the material and conceptual experimentation invested in the artworks that comprise this exhibition manifest Permaculture principles.
Art within Permaculture—or Art that takes Permaculture into account—can present itself in infinite ways. As Félix Guattari was already saying in the ‘70s, you can only achieve environmental ecology if you also ensure social and mental ecologies. That’s exactly what Permaculture does, even though David Holmgren and Bill Mollison passed it down in a way that often makes it seem like a niche interest for landowners with ecological concerns. I’d argue that Permaculture is one of the most complete frameworks we have for Democracy—especially now, as that dream seems to be falling apart, having never fully embraced the ecological dimension that our times demand.
When I began this series of works, I thought I had to abandon my previous practice in order to find myself through Permaculture. And I did let it go—for a while. But instead of discovering a “new me,” I ended up taking an inner journey that allowed me to create syntropy between my artistic work, my life, and my ecological concerns.
The first pieces that emerged were the result of much pondering and planning. They aimed to answer a specific question: how can we create images where the natural world is free to interact and become a co-author? I began experimenting with different materials that allowed natural elements to trigger reactions within the image —or with living beings that could inhabit the image and continue evolving long after my part was finished. The pieces presented in this exhibition are designed to evolve over time, each at its own pace.
Escape Velocity is composed of a life drawing created in one of our gardens at Quinta das Relvas, right next to our art studio. I took a chair into the garden and chose a viewpoint that would allow me to draw easily recognizable plant species (such as a sunflower, tunic carnations, and a young tamarillo). Using a very fine pen, I depicted what I saw with an almost scientific drawing approach—one that places the artist in a hierarchical position over nature, resonating with centuries of European painting and gardening traditions. I studied
scientific drawing during my MA, and this approach was essential for what I added later: a white circle that rotates continuously at the center of the image, powered by a magnet and a synchronous motor. This system is connected to a solar panel, so the work only fully reveals itself when the sun permits. When it doesn’t, the piece presents itself in a rather dull way. However, if the sun is willing to “engage in conversation,” the work becomes highly captivating.
The title comes from a Chemical Brothers track of the same name, which pairs well with the movement of the circle.
Are you referring to the Chemical Brothers, the English electronic music duo that dates back to 1992? I believe they were influenced by the rave/club scene in Manchester. What motivated you to include this pop culture reference? Were the song’s lyrics important to you (“Lifting me high. Your love keeps lifting me high.”)
I enjoy mixing seemingly divergent references, and since the initial drawing is nearly classical, I found the Chemical Brothers to be perfectly aligned with my goals. Regarding the circle, I see it as a symbol of subjectivity—an idea reinforced by its unpredictable motion (synchronous motors can turn in either direction and switch sides in a delightfully unexpected way).
Dafne follows the same logic, utilizing thermal prints (the same material used for shopping receipts) and lime juice, which reacts with the surface of the prints by creating a turquoise glaze. Thermal prints fade over time due to exposure to light and heat—such as from the sun. This piece was created under the intense sunlight of Paros, Greece, where I completed an artist residency in 2024. I tried to reproduce the same chemical reactions upon returning to the farm but couldn’t achieve the same results (for meteorological reasons). Now installed in the greenhouse at Casa da Cerca, I expect the figurative element that introduces the piece—a photograph of Bernini’s statue Daphne and Apollo —to completely fade over time (Bernini has been a recurring reference to my work since 2017). However, it is the narrative element that is ephemeral, not the material itself. So the piece will endure, with its message mutating as time passes.
Is the intention of incorporating an unstable image-producing process to display the futility of temporal endurance or is it a celebration of transformation?
Both but, I hope, on a positive way. Daphne, for instance, evokes a historical narrative of attempted rape and the personification of nature as a female figure—as in Les Sylphides. Yet, as the prints fade, the work will likely come to speak about memory. If all goes well, it will speak about evolution—the promise of something new. I hope it won’t speak about loss.
Your “promise of something new” suggests that this theme has relevance to current cultural conditions. Is that true?
It’s worth mentioning that when I first created this work, I wasn’t as preoccupied with the growing misogyny we now see gaining ground across the world. However, in later pieces (such as Soft Power), those concerns became a recurring theme during my sleepless nights—alongside the rise of the far-right. In Portugal, it’s now somewhat common for right-wing bullies to attend exhibition openings and book launches that touch on themes of freedom and subversion. I’m definitely talking about freedom—so they might pass by.
Dafne is particularly intriguing. The image depicts a hallmark of an art tradition that contradicts the Permaculture principles you celebrate. The work invites multiple interpretations. For instance, the fading of the image demonstrates the eradication of this tradition. It materializes the theme of transformation suggested by Daphne’s transformation into a tree. The repetition of the fragment and its disappearance embody the passion that Bernini embodied in this sculpture. In all these ways, this work’s depictions of transformation are, themselves, transformed. Please help us understand how you expanded such transformation from implications into material actualities in Soft Power, Não suporto ver-te brilhar, and other works in the exhibition.
The tracing paper in Soft Power will likely curl over time due to humidity. If all goes well, the lichens in Não suporto ver-te brilhar will continue to spread. In the large-scale works, the passage of time may not be immediately perceptible, although these pieces are not intended to last indefinitely. They might endure under the right conditions, but I’m not pursuing that.
More than in any of my previous works, this series embraces the passage of time through physical transformation. That sense of detachment—as a path to freedom—feels good.
Bedtime Arguments takes a decidedly different approach regarding method, content, structure, image, and composition. Please explain this dramatic shift.
It wasn’t until nearly two years into this process that I allowed myself to reintroduce my previous visual language—figurative drawing. That moment was pivotal. Permaculture helped me realize that in my desire to engage non-human perspectives, I had started leaving humans out of the conversation.
The piece Bedtime Arguments is about that realization. It depicts two characters—one human and one non-human—having a soap-opera-like bedtime dispute. This work came to life during a residency in New York City, where my studio was set up in an empty bedroom of a manor house on
Governors Island. In a way, I had to humanize these issues so they could be more accessible to the general public.
This powerful drawing consists of spoken text. The characters who are speaking are not visible. They are suggested by their combative verbal exchange. Their emotional rage is made visible by your manner of squeezing and interrupting the text, and rendering it with gestures of fury. Please identify the non-human character /perspective you referenced and explain why you refer to this artwork, comprised exclusively of text, as ‘figurative’.
Although they are not seen within the image, figures are present in these works: there is a dialogue between them through written words composed of signs (which are figures themselves). These figures, though present but not visible, appear here as formless subjects that legitimize their discourse, allowing the viewer to shift from identifying with the oppressed to identifying with the oppressor. And only after that shift is it possible to fully enter into what the other works are communicating. With the creation of Bedtime Arguments I understood that what I truly wanted was to engage in dialogue, but I felt blocked by the idea that I needed to “speak nature’s language” to do so. Then it struck me: the real obstacle was the paradox of lacking a shared position—where nature and I could sit as equals, face-to-face, in pursuit of understanding. And that’s when I realized that what I needed to aim for was the aim itself: dialogue, understanding, and solidarity.
Now, I see all the pieces in this project as stages for performance—between the elements within the image, external factors, and the viewer —designed to enhance perception and, hopefully, spark a correction in behavior.
Concept, tool, and design are components of Permaculture and of art. However, you suggest that Permaculture conducts these processes in manners that deviate from conventional art practices. Please describe these differences.
I’ll try to be more objective now. Contrary to what was once the tendency in modern art, Permaculture emphasizes the importance of effective interactions between bodies, tools, and matter. In my understanding, this stems from its prioritization of observation over categorization —of interaction based on mutual understanding, rather than classification and exploitation.
The permaculturist is meant to perceive through all senses. It’s a general state of availability—a readiness to enter into dialogue with others, whether human, non-human, or matter itself. This approach makes us more aware of what we truly need and what we don’t, both in terms of characteristics and quantity, and as a result, it inherently works against waste and pollution.
But again, this awareness can open up to infinite possibilities. That same neo-materialist attentiveness can also extend beyond physical interactions—or those interactions can take place at varying levels of proximity to their source. I find that incredibly beautiful, because it allows Permaculture to resist its greatest Achilles’ heel: becoming a pseudo-science marketed through paid courses, passed around among the same eco-conscious elite that once bought Teslas.
Please apply these Permaculture considerations to the garden installation that is featured in this exhibition. They imply extolling multisensory interactions, observations, dialogue while diminishing the role of an individual creator who asserts a personal intention, a hallmark of Western art since the Renaissance.
While working on this series, I found myself talking about power, authorship, exploitation, blackmail—even themes I was already exploring in previous work. I didn’t expect them to align so naturally with a project originally conceived for a garden and a greenhouse. But of course, that makes sense—this project began from the realization that gardening itself can be a form of soft power over nature.
This is my first project to include an exhibition and large-scale intervention in an articulated way—a proposition I was only able to respond to through dialogue with the Casa da Cerca team—Sónia, Ana, Paula, and Filipa—with whom every possibility was not only discussed, but truly thought through together. Speaking of Permaculture, it couldn’t have been any other way. In the garden—together with architecture students, friends, and volunteers—we built twelve raised beds using bioconstruction techniques, a composting area, and a vermicomposter.
We also reorganized the garden’s flora through a zoning exercise. This zoning approach suggests dividing space according to your needs, planting what you need closest to you. I introduced a small twist to this logic: this is a painter’s garden, where most of the chosen species are especially useful as artistic materials—particularly for producing natural dyes and handmade paper.
However, Permaculture encourages the elements in a system to be as interconnected as possible. With that in mind, we also included a significant number of species connected to a painter’s more ordinary needs, such as food production and water treatment. At first, I thought these two groups should be kept separate. But doing so would have meant relocating every existing plant in the garden—something I felt would have wasted energy (ours, but more importantly, the plants’). That would go against the project’s core principles.
The twelve raised beds, arranged in circular shapes, serve multiple purposes. First, I wanted to disrupt the modernist straight lines that define the garden layout—to challenge human-centered
notions of what is considered “right” or “correct.” Second, by breaking the grid, visitors are invited to experience the garden as a labyrinth. Some of the circles block paths, encouraging visitors to slow down and pay closer attention in order to understand the layout—an experience heightened by the absence of plant identification signs. It’s worth noting that a labyrinth, historically, is an introspective tool meant for self-discovery (as opposed to a maze, which is designed to make one feel lost). Third, the circular shapes themselves have been present in my work for a few years as a symbol of subjectivity. They reference an educational saying that “children come in different shapes,” suggesting that not all should sit on square chairs or be taught the same way. For me, they also connect to a more personal story—my experience with antidepressants after postpartum depression. Finally, since the garden always has a “color of the year,” and this year’s color is violet, I introduced it as an element of aesthetic delight. I believe this connects with an idea Emanuele Coccia explores in The Life of Plants: that plants use aesthetic exuberance to attract attention to their reproductive systems as a survival strategy. Since reading that, I’ve held on to the thought that, in a way, art may serve a similar purpose in human existence.
Biologically, Permaculture strives to augment diversity and abundance in a manner that is regenerative. How were these principles activated in the garden project?
I believe this characteristic of Permaculture is best illustrated in the plurality of proposals that make up this project—not only through mostly two-dimensional works, but also through an intervention in the garden itself. When I first started thinking about how to bring all these possibilities together at Casa da Cerca, I was afraid that, because of the diversity of approaches, the project might come across as a teatro de variedades, just a kind of show-off. But then I realized that narrowing down the pieces to only those that represent the “right” way of presenting the concept would go completely against the project’s own conclusions.
Do you apply Permaculture plurality as NGO director of Quinta das Relvas?
I work daily on a farm that applies Permaculture in the field, with the goal of addressing the three ecologies Guattari speaks of. At Quinta das Relvas, we organize artistic residencies and continuously encourage deeper engagement between artists and Permaculture, both theoretically and practically. This has proven to have a direct and immediate impact on how artists think about their work—and also how they relate to space, to materials, and to others during the residency. What’s beautiful is that this transformation happens regardless of their
background, previous artistic language, themes, or chosen mediums.
When we first became acquainted, you were struggling to integrate your roles as artist, administrator, curator, farmer, and mother. Permaculture was not included in the considerations you were engaging. Now you are personally guided by its principles. You even established a program that guides other artists toward that goal. How did that shift occur?
In my own case, the process was longer —maybe because, as they say, “you can’t see the forest for the trees.” I was too immersed in my own references to realize what was already working in my practice. So, in fact, not much changed: I’ve always been devoted to social ecology as my central theme. I’ve always used low-cost materials, produced very little waste, and reused tools and materials that many artists would consider trash. And above all, I left the city ten years ago to live on a farm, chasing a fuzzy dream of creating educational activities around what the core team and I were passionate about —art and sustainability.
In short, my new work is the result of that process of self-reflection and evaluation, translated into images I hope can be of collective interest. I’d be thrilled if, after engaging with these works, people walk away not only with a better sense of what Permaculture is, but with a deeper feeling of belonging.
How does permaculture influence your choice of mediums?
I have always fought against waste and unreasonable consumption when it comes to acquiring artistic materials, not necessarily because of ecological concerns, but mostly because I’ve always believed that it’s not the quality of your materials that allows you to make good art. I was never attached to specific suppliers or fans of the most recent or original materials.
Now, as a proper grown-up, I understand that it’s important for the material to empower your processes or, at least, not work against them. But by the time I realized that, fortunately, it was already too late. I often collect potential materials and still have oils from my first oil painting set. I know they’re not ecological, but I make that production count.
So, when I started this project, it didn’t make sense to throw away all the materials I had in the studio just to start using only ecological ones. On the other hand, I was very careful when buying new materials, which were mostly handmade ecological pastels, a solar panel, large-scale paper (that I treat carefully with absolutely no waste), and clay. Clay is something new for me.
Once, a ceramics teacher saw a drawing evaluation of my works and said, “Oh, you draw so well! Why are you so bad at ceramics?” I love
this story and tell it often. And it is exactly because I was bad at ceramics that I decided to bring that opportunity for failure to the table. That’s also how I started using pastels and collage—because I was so bad at them.
In general, I choose my mediums mostly for the discomfort they bring me, which empowers my ability to detach from goals and forces me to open up to the process. Again, to get antenada (in tune).
Let’s discuss Les Sylphides , a ballet that made history in 1836 because it was the first ballet to eliminate narrative and replace it with a romantic reverie. The ballet does not tell a story; it evokes the sensory ramifications of being in love. The ballet’s aestheticism and sensuality are precisely the qualities evoked by your interpretation. How do they factor into Permaculture?
These large-scale drawings revisit a classical narrative from a new perspective, one that reconsiders the paradigms we still struggle to address, even when they’ve already become more than obvious.
That’s why it made sense to present not only the two-dimensional pieces and the garden intervention—which implements Permaculture strategies for land, water, waste, and food —but also the idea of beauty only makes sense to me in a very broad sense. It can only be defined in relation to other things and is only “right” within a specific, defined context —as Derrida explored in Truth in Painting. For me, beauty is honesty. In theoretical terms, I deeply connect this idea to realism (as Goethe first proposed), postmodernism, and pragmatism. Thank God, this is Permaculture—so I allowed myself a little aesthetic joy too.
Your dedication to “aesthetic joy” provides an intriguing application to Permaculture’s focus on whole systems approaches in which multiple concurrent interactions coexist. How do you apply whole systems strategies to your art?
Permaculture promotes complex systems in which each element must interact with multiple others to ensure that nothing—like energy —is wasted. I take this principle very seriously, not only in my life as an artist, but also as an NGO director, a family member, and a member of a community. In an almost obsessive way, things must make sense.
At first, this need for coherence was clear to me in my daily life—but not in my individual art practice. I was afraid that my artistic work wasn’t as devoted to ecological concerns as my role at the NGO was, and that made me feel insecure. When I started thinking about Casa da Cerca’s site, I knew I couldn’t simply “talk about” the garden. But I also knew that pretending to “be” the garden didn’t feel right either. That kind of appropriation felt rude and presumptuous.
For a while, especially at the beginning of this series, I would lie awake at night questioning whether I was making greenwashing art. I worried that my proposals weren’t honest enough. It was only when I realized how deeply my artistic practice was already connected to everything else—including my daily life at the farm and the NGO—that I could finally relax. This series didn’t add new elements to my system —it simply clarified the connections that were already there.
Permaculture speaks of interconnectivity. I often think in terms of intersubjectivity This garden is named “arts’ floor,” and the intervention takes place in the specific area called “the artist’s garden.” I wanted to break down the possessive tone of that name. I wanted the artist to be with the garden—not to own it, not to stand above it, but to exist as just another element within it.
Thank you for introducing the idea of sharing space because that is precisely the concept Permaculture favors when it advocates the creation of ‘edges’. Edges where contrasting ecosystems meet is where the most diversity and abundance are maximized. Do you seek or augment cultural ‘edges’?
In today’s language, “edge” is often seen as something negative. What’s “marginal” is usually defined as that which doesn’t follow the “order,” and so it’s pushed to the margins by so-called “ordinary” people. But this only makes sense within an exploitative, capitalist worldview—one where diversity is treated as a threat to production and consumption, and where control over the masses is maintained through manufactured scarcity and greed.
In the real world, however, diversity is exactly where living beings want to be. It is where human settlements were first established. Only in the 21st century do we see eucalyptus monocultures erasing ancient footpaths to the nearest river (as is happening in the village where I live).
Permaculture, on the other hand, recognizes that difference creates fertility. For example, when the shape of a hill shifts from concave to convex, that transition point is where most of the sediments accumulate. Permaculture calls this area the keyline —a point of maximum potential. When thinking about “edges” in art, I see two main spheres: inside and outside the artwork.
Inside the artwork, drawing is the place where edges are embraced—not just surface outlines, but the kinds of elements that would usually be left out or pushed aside. Drawing has the unique ability to bring to the visual world ideas that are not yet closed or corrected. The most extraordinary drawings are those that are full of unexpectedness—unique results of time, space, body, and material coming together. These drawings leave no sediment out; they create no edges because they are the edges. Although this invites many divergent
conversations, I believe that extraordinary art is only possible through extraordinary drawing. The second way to approach this question is from outside the artwork—within the broader art world or cultural landscape. Here, I believe money tends to speak the loudest, shaping trends and tastes. This is easy to see in the fashion industry, but the cultural sector as a whole isn’t so different. Like monocultures, it often ends up flattening diversity.
Permaculture, however, is sometimes translated as a “culture of permanence,” in the sense that it promotes resilient, thoughtful systems designed to work in the long run. What was true for Permaculture in 1970s Australia still holds today in Portugal—or anywhere in the world. Yet it also allows room for flexibility. It considers a wide range of variables, often organized within the Scale of Permanence —which spans from the physical characteristics of the land, like soil and sunlight, to the cultural history of a place (the zero principle, later added by Rosemary Morrow). This means that Permaculture—like real art—has nothing to do with trends or fleeting tastes. There is no such thing as being “out.” On the contrary, there is always a strong drive to include, and “edges,” as new proposals, are not only welcomed —they are essential.
LW BM
While Permaculture may not invite permanence, it does consciously factor long-term benefits (resilience) into its considerations. Do you factor this consideration into your art practice?
I’m not particularly attached to my artworks as objects—never have been. I often destroy older works if they seem like useful material for something new. For me, the most rewarding moment as an artist is the creative process itself —that specific time and space where you feel closer to something true.
Beyond that, I’ve learned to value when an artwork has a real, positive impact on the viewer. I’d say that’s where long-term benefits can occur. Still, art history has already shown us that this impact tends to happen mostly through reproductions and critical texts—contexts that help connect the dots for a broader audience. Or through public programs. I like those. I love books. But I believe all of that has little to do with the actual creation of an artwork or the experience of seeing an exhibition by a single artist.
That said, I don’t believe individual artworks or artists, on their own, have the qualities needed to be significant for a Culture of Permanence. They are, however, essential elements of it —when understood in relation to everything else.
Is the farm a work of art?
It might—I don’t know. But it’s definitely a work in progress, and I don’t intend to finish it. Maybe it’s a never-ending artistic process. If I ever get tired of working at (or with) the farm, and things become too crystallized—too fixed in space and concept—I believe I’ll simply move on and do something else, somewhere else. We’re not aiming for a conclusion. We’re aiming to live a process.
Is the artist residency program you conduct on the farm a permaculture work of art?
Same.
Let us conclude this interview with a question that you can answer personally. But readers of this interview might apply your insights to themselves as practicing artists, and as inhabitants on a planet imperiled by the indiscretions and abuses wrought by other humans. To what standards of excellence /merit, derived from Permaculture principles, do you apply to your aspirations and intentions?
In my personal work, I’ve long believed that the best pieces are the ones that arise unexpectedly—though they only appear when you’re antenado (tuned in) with your practice as a whole, allowing yourself the freedom to fully explore possibilities.
My works always begin with specific concepts I want to reflect on, rather than from purely aesthetic exploration. In order to reach that point of aesthetic freedom, I first feel the need to prove myself worthy of it. I think the same logic applies to art that derives from Permaculture.
For me, it’s all about honesty. I get chills when I believe I’m doing something good (whatever that means) or when I experience some form of artistic interaction that goes beyond my understanding of everything. I consider that a physical symptom of living beauty. I think this is a good way to relate to our capacities—and our incapacities—when pursuing more ecological approaches to our lives, including in our artistic practice, especially when we think individually. Permaculture is so much more than environmental ecology. It is a tool for ecology as a whole, something for everyone to implement everywhere, in everything. What art can bring to the equation is not as an object, but as a process, helping us, as a global community, to get antenados through intersubjectivity, aiming for solidarity and resilience.
Biography
Beatriz Manteigas is a Portuguese visual artist, born in 1990 in Lisbon.
In 2022, she gained a PhD in Drawing at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Lisbon, with a grant from the FCT—Foundation for Science and Technology. She also has a master’s in Artistic Anatomy (2014) and a degree in Painting (2012) from the same institution. She participated in study exchanges at the University of Porto (2011-2012), the Royal Academy of St Petersburg (2011) and the Polytechnic University of Valencia (2010-2011). She spent brief periods living and working in Düsseldorf (2012) and London (2010).
In 2016, she co-founded the Quinta das Relvas Association, devoted to informal education in the arts and sustainability, based at an ecological farm estate where she lives and works. She is currently chair of the board and coordinator of the association’s Arts Department. Also in 2016, she became a researcher with CIEBA—Artistic Studies Research Centre at the University of Lisbon.
Since 2009, she has exhibited and made public presentations in Portugal and abroad (Belgium, Brazil, Scotland, Spain, USA, England and Turkey), and participated in artistic residencies (Brazil, Spain, USA, Greece and Portugal). She is represented in private and public collections.
In 2025, she is artist-in-residence for the International Programme of Speculative Ecologies in the Amazon (Brazil) and at Residency Unlimited (USA) with the support of FLAD—Luso-American Development Foundation.
beatrizmanteigas.com
Linda Weintraub is an American curator, teacher and artist, and the author of various books on contemporary art. She explores her environmental concerns through the sustainable management of her property, where she practices permaculture.
She was director of the Edith C. Blum Art Institute at Bard College and taught at Oberlin College. She currently teaches on the Nomad9 MFA programme at the University of Hartford.
Her most relevant publications on art and ecology include: WHAT’s NEXT? Eco Materialism & Contemporary Art (2018), To LIFE! Eco Art in Pursuit of a Sustainable Planet (2012) and the series Avant-Guardians (2007). As a curator, she is known for the exhibitions Dear Mother Nature and Art What Thou Eat lindaweintraub.com
I see Permaculture as a way of being in relationship with everything that surrounds me. It feels like a universal language of energy, matter, time , and space that promotes syntropy without demanding mastery of any of these concepts.
1. Escape Velocity
2024 Pen on paper, synchronous motor, magnets, solar panel and sunlight
54 x 50 cm
2. Bedtime arguments
2024 Graphite, ArtGraf Tailor Shape and adhesive paper tape on paper
178 x 142 cm
3. Dafne
2024 Thermal prints, lime juice, sunlight and adhesive paper tape on paper
44 x 45 cm
4. Are you making greenwashing art?
2025 White clay and sunlight
22 x 15 cm
5. Les Sylphides IV
2025 Homemade pastel, pastel, oil, Indian ink, acrylic, adhesive paper tape, backdrop paper and tracing paper on paper
208 x 151 cm
Les Sylphides I
2025 Homemade pastel, oil and photocopies on paper
162 x 151 cm
7.
Les Sylphides II
2025 Homemade pastel, oil stick, oil, Indian ink, acrylic, adhesive paper tape and tracing paper on paper
202 x 156 cm
8.
Não suporto ver-te brilhar
2024 Paper pulp and lichens on geo-textile
44 x 36 cm
8.
On the necessity of gardening
2025 Pastel and algae on paper mounted on a wooden plank 148 x 229 cm
10.
Les Sylphides III
2025 Homemade pastel, oil stick, oil, Indian ink, acrylic, adhesive paper tape and tracing paper on paper
201 x 151 cm
11. Soft power
2025 Graphite, oil, tracing paper, adhesive paper tape and humidity on duplex board
89 x 77 cm
9.
11.
the real obstacle was the paradox of lacking a shared position—where nature and I could sit as equals, face-to-face, in pursuit of understanding. And that’s when I realized that what I needed to aim for was the aim itself: dialogue , understanding , and solidarity.
O que conta é a intenção Beatriz Manteigas
Mayor of Almada City Council and Councillor for Culture
Inês de Medeiros
Municipal Director for Social Development
Mário da Rocha Ávila
Head of Division of the Contemporary Art Centre
Nuno Moura
Scientific Coordination and Curatorship
Sónia Francisco
Production and Artist Residency Support
Ana Taipas
Communication
Paula Freire
Texts
Beatriz Manteigas, Linda Weintraub
Consultancy in Permaculture
António Trindade
Exhibition in the Greenhouse
Ana Taipas, Paulo Ramos, Sónia Francisco, Ema Minderico
Divisão de Manutenção de Equipamentos Municipais da CMA
Arte em Acção / Cabe184
Implementation of the Installation in the Painters' Garden
António Trindade, Maria Mantas, Filipa Albino, Filipe González (FAUL —Faculdade de Arquitetura da Universidade de Lisboa), com o apoio de Ana Taipas, Sílvia Moreira, Sónia Francisco, Valdomiro Neto (FAUL), e dos alunos da unidade curricular Construção com terra: diálogos na forma e na materialidade, de 2025 (FAUL)
Administration Support Carla Novais
It is the intention that matters
O Chão das Artes —Botanical Garden Filipa Albino, Sónia Francisco
Educational Service
Ana Sofia Godinho, Filipa Albino, Mário Rainha Campos, Sílvia Moreira
Collection Management
Maria Miguel Cardoso
Documentation and Research Centre
Mestre Rogério Ribeiro
Ana Margarida Martins
Production and Logistics
Paulo Ramos
Reception
Anabela Almeida, Fernando Simões, Hélder Gonçalves, Júlia Garcia, Luís Ferreira, Victor Borges
Support Emília Ferreira
Garden Maintenance
Brígida Girão, Soraia Dias
Divisão de Espaços Verdes e Parques Urbanos da CMA
Artworks Photography Filipe Braga
Graphic Design atelier-do-ver
Graphic Materials
Fixão
Translation
Kennis Translations