The Viajor Exhibition, displayed at the Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes, between 7 February and 8 March 2025, is a symbolic interpretation of the Portuguese Discoveries, paying homage to Luís Vaz de Camões and his epic poem ´Os Lusiadas`, marking 500 years of the poet’s life and work.

The artwork comprises a polyptych of tapestries, created between 1993 and 2024, representing the starting and ending points of a narrative. It evokes the steps, encounters, and missteps of this epic journey, reflecting a personal conquest with an aesthetic and spiritual purpose.

It spans two distinct phases of the artist’s creative career: the classical-style tapestries, first showcased in 2002 at the ´Pátria Mundo` exhibition at the Museu Nacional do Traje, in Lisbon and the more experimental, contemporary works, exhibited in 2023 at the ´Habitat and the Poetics of the Five Senses` exhibition at the Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência, also in Lisbon.

Despite the stylistic differences, the narrative character remains constant throughout the exhibition. Whether through figurative or abstract representations, the tapestries have a profoundly personal dimension, rendering them enigmatic and inviting the viewer to interpret their titles and subtitles as an initiatory journey.

The techniques employed combine the binary crossing of threads, following both the classical tradition of the Manufacture ´des Gobelins` and experimental approaches. The work incorporates a broad range of materials, from natural fibres such as linen, wool, silk, and cotton to functional and climate-responsive artificial fibres. Precious metals like silver, copper, and gold, as well as limestone and semi-precious stones, shells, and glass, enrich the composition. Additionally, unexpected elements of a surrealist nature, such as clogs, shovels, and spinning wheels, lend the work a unique symbolic and descriptive dimension.

Constant creative evolution drives the experimentation with new materials and ways of capturing light, creating innovative atmospheres. The tapestry expands across multiple planes, offering an immersive sensory experience while seeking harmony between chaos and order. The artwork reveals the coexistence of opposites, such as masculine and feminine, technique and sensitivity, science, art, and nature, in a singular balance.

In perpetual transformation, the work reflects the impossibility of its conclusion, pointing toward a path of reconciliation with the planet, embedded within an aesthetic of resistance.

Luisa Moreira 

Based on texts by Dr Madalena Braz Teixeira, in the catalogue Pátria Mundo, 2000 and by Altina Martins, in the catalogue Habitat e a Poética dos Cinco Sentidos, 2023

“Tecer é um fluxo de habilidades que se entrelaçam, é uma arte misteriosa”
 Altina Mar

Altina Mar

‘Weaving is a flow of skills that intertwine, it’s a mysterious art’

Maria Altina Martins, better known as Altina Mar (1953), began her career in tapestry at the beginning of the 1970s. Her training and the refinement of her artistic and technical sensibility had the fundamental support of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, which awarded the artist two important scholarships. The first grant, in 1978/1979, allowed her to carry out in-depth research into Natural Weaving and Dyeing Methods, which she developed in the regions of Coimbra, Minho and Trás-os-Montes. The second grant, between 1995 and 1996, took her to the Manufacture des Gobelins in Paris, where she specialised in Woven Tapestry, one of the most prestigious tapestry schools in the world.

Altina Martins’ exhibition career is long and includes dozens of solo and group exhibitions.

In addition to her vast body of work, Altina Martins leaves an equally significant legacy in the field of textile teaching. As a teacher at Lisbon’s Escola Artística António Arroio, she played a fundamental role in the training of several generations of students, from 1981-1982 to 1988-2021. Throughout these decades, she not only taught techniques, but also inspired a new understanding and appreciation of tapestry as an art, perpetuating her legacy in the education and preservation of this tradition.

It is represented in the following institutional and private collections: Santuário de Fátima (1990); Centro Ismaelita de Lisboa (1991); Câmara Municipal de Montalegre (1992); Museu Nacional do Traje (1993), (2000) and (2008); Biblioteca de Montalegre (2004); Biblioteca de Albufeira (2004); Museu dos Lanifícios da UBI, Covilhã (2010); Museu Nacional do Teatro (2011); Palácio de Alpedrinha da C. M. Fundão (2012); Ecomuseu de Montalegre (2014); Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (2020). M. do Fundão (2012); Ecomuseum of Montalegre (2014); Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (2020).

Link to the artist´s  CV