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The word on the street
There was a time when most art was made for the glory of God, when the Church made the best (and the best-funded) client. Nowadays, art is a secular rival to religion, competing with places of worship for devotees, and erecting great cathedrals like the Guggenheims and the Tates.
The Ermida Nossa Senhora da Conceição, in the Belém area of Lisbon, is a small chapel repurposed as a gallery that shows work by contemporary Portuguese artists. Belém is 6km west of the capital’s centre, and contains several historical monuments and important museums. To publicise the new space, and make friends with the graphic design community as well as art lovers, the chapel’s owner, Dr Eduardo Fernandes, approached R2, a design practice based in Porto, and asked them to make a graphic intervention in Travessa do Marta Pinto, the alleyway by the chapel.
R2’s principals are Lizá Defossez Ramalho and Artur Rebelo, who founded the practice in 1995 while studying in the Fine Arts faculty at Porto University. Their previous projects include elegant, content-driven poster campaigns for film, dance and art festivals, as well as identity, exhibition and book design for cultural clients.
For the Lisbon alleyway, the designers, fascinated by the venue’s eighteenth-century origins, decided to bring God back into the conversation, making use of everyday expressions that include the name of the deity . . . |
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