The process was made possible with the essential contribution of ESMAD – School of Media Arts and Design and the Mindelo Parish Council, which supported the artists in the creation of works developed from the proposals presented to the partner institutions’ juries. Active for over a decade, the program has been a driving force for contemporary creation, fostering new artistic languages and strengthening the cultural fabric of the region.

The 2025 edition results from the collaboration between Solar – Cinematic Art Gallery (Vila do Conde), gnration (Braga), and the Centro Internacional de Artes José Guimarães (CIAJG), in Guimarães. Selected through an open call launched earlier this year, four artistic proposals gave shape to the eleventh edition of the program, under the curatorial guidance of artist, researcher, and curator Joana Pestana.

The works now completed reflect the richness and vitality of emerging artistic practices:

• "In Search of the Forgotten Image", by Catarina Braga, a video essay that uses the plant emoji as a starting point to explore the ontology of the digital image and its relationship with the natural world.

• "Homúnculo", by Dora Vieira, an immersive installation combining sculpture, painting, video, and sound, evoking hybrid bodies that oscillate between the organic and the artificial.

• "Botânica Electromagnética", by Mariana Sardon, a set of interconnected sound devices that generate a dynamic acoustic landscape — sometimes euphoric, sometimes dissonant — reflecting the interplay between life, matter, and electronics.

• "Pedra de Memória", by Renato Cruz Santos, an audiovisual installation on the imagination, landscape, and identity of the Caxinas fishing community, inspired by the symbolic presence of Forcada, a granite rock formation off the coast of Vila do Conde.

With this cycle of residencies and the forthcoming exhibition, Summer Labs reaffirms its unique role in the Portuguese cultural landscape, building bridges between artists, territories, and audiences, and opening new ways of thinking about and experiencing contemporary art.

The initiative is supported by the Portuguese Republic – Culture / dgARTES – Directorate-General for the Arts, the RTCP – Portuguese Theatres and Cine-Theatres Network, and the Super Bock Group, within the scope of the gnration’s local artistic creation support programs.