The DIGNIDADE project was born as a tribute to my grandparents, who have passed away, and to the mixture of feelings that they transmitted to me when I shared time with them: my respect, a certain depth of anguish and pain, sacrifice, hardness, resignation, silence...

Thus, the project becomes a tribute that extends to an entire generation for which I feel great admiration and which I consider deserves to be honored.

They are those who grew up in poverty and hardship, experienced the war and post-war period from the eyes of a boy or girl, lost parents and siblings, and grew up amidst hunger, pain and fear.

As adults they tried to adapt to the system, keeping their heads down and working hard, an example of resignation and sacrifice, and each getting ahead as best they could. And now, in the final stretch of their lives, I feel that they are the most forgotten, just as silent and just as resigned, resisting in the bosom of an increasingly superficial society. And for all that, for me it is a forgotten and admirable generation.

DIGNIDADE is a series of 10 portraits of elderly people from the village where I live. The health circumstances caused by the appearance of the COVID-19, and they, as one of the sectors of the population most punished during the pandemic, make me decide to choose users of the Residence and Day Center "O teu Fogar" in Foz as the models to photograph in this tribute.

The project was built around three axes, common to those portrayed and portrayed, aspects that symbolize what this generation represents for me and what I want to pass on to them: the knowledge of what really matters, the acceptance of reality and their skin as the map of a life journey.

DIGNIDADE has an artistic purpose and a single purpose: a performance in and for the community. The aim is to give visibility and recognition to 12 specific people who symbolize an entire generation. To carry out this purpose, I propose two successive and complementary phases, through two tools.

The first, more traditional tool is a joint exhibition of the images in an exhibition hall. Next to each image is placed a card on which a few lines of text tell who the person is who appears in the portrait.

The second tool, I think more conceptual and innovative, is an action that consists of showing the same images in relevant places, the places that are kept for official portraits in almost any institution. Thus, the place once intended for the photograph of the King will now be occupied for a while by the portrait of an elderly person from the town. The important thing here is where the image is placed and why, to invite reflection.