Trienal no Alentejo

Dormente de mó | Casa de Burgos, Évora, Portugal 2014 |
from 16 octobre to 17 novembre 2014

curator: D. André de Quiroga
with the support of Val do sol
special thanks to the teams of Trienal no Alentejo and Casa de Burgos, as well as to António Carlos Silva, Paulo Correia, Ricardo Pelado and Mariana Mourato
Dormente de mó is the archaeological term used to identify the base of a prehistoric mill. It is the immutable base, the dormant millstone that receives the friction of the moving millstone, like history receives the movements of the present. Dormente de mó is also the name given to the Menhir 25 found near the Megalithic Enclosure of Almendres.

At the Casa de Burgos, a Flow of pots comes out from the back of a Gothic-mudéjar style room. It slides on the floor, as if coming out of the oven or emerging from the archeological excavations in the underground tunnel, where impressive construction blocks from the pre-Roman periode and signs of the islamic occupation of the town during the Portuguese medieval times. Dated from the Neolithic, the invention of ceramic is an important step in the development of human technics. It is an easy material to work with, and, contrary to metal, its transformations are reversible. Besides that, ceramic offers the archaeologists precious information, as it reflects different cultural tendencies over the years. It is a temporal measure that, with its substance, contributes to building the content of History, enrichens
its traceability. Eventhough broken and not functionning as recipiente ("that receives" in Latin), become a form of historical content.