The new Exhibition Center and Museum Installation on the Sagres Promontory, dedicated to the Discoveries and how they related to the Fortress and the place where it was built, will be inaugurated on October 4th, at 11:00 am, announced on Sunday, the 28th, Adriana Nogueira, Regional Director of Culture in the Algarve.
The news was given during the presentation of the 2022 edition of the DiVaM program, which took place in Fortaleza de Sagres, on Saturday.
“The last details are already being finalized. There are only small things to do and we still have time», revealed Adriana Nogueira to Sul Informação.
This will be the culmination of a long process, which began in 2012, with the presentation of a first project, gained new momentum in 2018, when the project was updated and advanced to the ground in 2021, thanks to the contribution of more than 1 million euros of funds from the European Union to the Operational Program CRESC Algarve 2020.
At the end of 2021, the first element of what will be the permanent exhibition was placed in the future exhibition centre, a bicentennial wooden door, which for a long time controlled access to the fortress.
The placement of this first piece was marked with a ceremony presided over by the then Minister of Culture, Graça Fonseca, followed by a visit to the works.
At the time, Ariana Nogueira explained that this will be «a multimedia space, but not excessively, so that one cannot see the exhibition without that dimension».
As for the pieces that will be on display, the only one that belongs to the collection in the center is the XNUMXth century door. The rest of the exhibition will feature «borrowed original pieces», as well as «many images projected on the walls, photography, saints, etc., showing the occupation of this space that is the Sagres Promontory and also the saints, in this case São Vicente, how he was represented at various times. We are getting images from various places».
In the different cells, «a whole story about the voyages that the Portuguese made» is told, to emphasize the importance that the action of Infante D. Henrique had in the Discoveries and in all that they implied - and it will already be seen that it is even in all.
“This is a multisensory exhibition. You will feel wind and there are light games. There is a room that will have three different colors and, if no color is projected, you will not understand what is written there, each color will enhance the message that is there. It is a story that is told, basically, in three phases», describes the regional director of Culture.
In another cell, there is the recreation of the Infante's workspace, «a small studio that is a fictional reproduction, what was imagined to be a reflection room at the time».
This medieval office will have «the maps that were known at the time and those that were also known, the very study that the Infante would have done».
Here, the team that conceived the exhibition gave free rein to its imagination, as it is not clear how Henrique lived during the time he lived in the Algarve, probably in Lagos.
Whether in Sagres, Lagos or Lisbon, even though there was never a Sagres School (creation of the Estado Novo), «someone thought and someone decided to advance through these seas. And you will see these maps, also of this world that, in the meantime, was reached by the Portuguese».
There will also be a representation of the hold of a ship, the ship used by the Portuguese in the heyday of the Discoveries. In the cell where this recreation is made, there is no reference to the transport of slaves. But this dark dimension of our history, that of slave ships and the slave trade, has not been forgotten. On the contrary.
The last niche before the final room is entirely dedicated to this theme.
«We are going to have a slave collar here, borrowed from the National Archeology Museum, because this is a reality that unfortunately happened. It is a reality that, unfortunately, still exists today, with another type of slave. But we have to assume it in its full dimension», stated Adriana Nogueira.
The experience ends in a room where a sphere will be installed, inside which people will be invited to enter to watch a movie. «There will be audio guides, so that people do not disturb each other and people of different languages can hear the story as it is being told», concluded the regional director of culture for the Algarve.
All this can be discovered, from the 4th of October, in the Fortress of Sagres, which will finally gain one more reason to visit and contextualize its importance.
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