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Catarina Leitão

Now

O Mote do Mundo é a Floresta

Museu Nacional Soares dos Reis, Porto · 17 October 2026 to 31 January 2027

Strips and tubes of plastic and fabric in green, red, blue and yellow, suspended against a dark green artificial-grass ground.

O Mote do Mundo é a Floresta borrows its title from Ursula K. Le Guin (The Word for World Is Forest) to think of nature not as something outside culture but as a material and imaginary construction. Developed specifically for the space, the installation grows out of research in the collection of the Museu Nacional Soares dos Reis and sets historical objects in relation to my own works. Across ceramics, textiles, stone, paint and plant matter, representation and fabrication draw close: the forest becomes a figure for what grows, changes and crosses categories.

On view
Until 31 January 2027
Hours
Tuesday to Sunday, 10am–6pm. Free admission for residents of Portugal
Context
Artist residency within Cruzamentos Artísticos, the museum's program theme for 2026

museusoaresdosreis.gov.pt

TERRITORY: Fronteiras na Arte Pública

Armazém das Artes, Alcobaça · 16 October 2026 to March 2028

Exhibition poster for TERRITORY: thin dark metal rods, like branches, rising against a white wall.

TERRITORY brings together ten artists living and working in Portugal around an expanded notion of public art: beyond the mural, painting, sculpture, installation, light, language, technology and site-specific intervention as ways of transforming the spaces we share. The exhibition opens an eighteen-month program at the Armazém das Artes in Alcobaça, running until March 2028.

With Akacorleone, Bisco Smith, Catarina Leitão, Mando Marie, Mots, Padure, Ricardo Romero, Rudolfo Quintas, The Lost Object and Wasted Rita.

armazemdasartes.com

Earlier

White Box #1: Intervalos

Museu do Caramulo · closed on 18 October

Sculpture in a museum room: a green vertical structure with colored plastic strips and tubes, on a patch of artificial grass.
Installation view, White Box #1: Intervalos, Museu do Caramulo.

Curated by José Maçãs de Carvalho, the exhibition brought together work by Daniela Krtsch, Fabrizio Matos, João Fonte Santa and myself, made during a residency in the Serra do Caramulo in response to the museum's collections.

museudocaramulo.pt

ECO·NOMIA: As Regras da Casa

Centro Cultural de Cascais, Fundação D. Luís I · closed on 27 September

Installation view: sculptures of colored tubing on artificial grass and a series of framed drawings on the wall.
Installation view, ECO·NOMIA: As Regras da Casa. Photo: Júlia Lomba.

Over four months, drawings from the Morfometrias series, Naturfatura sculptures, three large-format prints and the Dendrogram, in a new configuration, shared the ground floor of the Fundação D. Luís I on the principle of consociation: distinct forms and materials cohabiting the same house.

Cover of the ECO·NOMIA: As Regras da Casa catalogue, with colored tubes looped over green artificial grass.

The digital catalogue, with texts by Salvato Teles de Menezes and Inês Ferreira-Norman and photographs of the works, can be viewed here. Images of the exhibition are on the project page.

Thank you to the team at the Fundação D. Luís I and to everyone who visited.