SOFIA PIRES
selection of works
2019 - 2025
Back cover of the self-published book “LÍNGUAS”, 2025
My artistic research mainly revolves around storytelling, language, and memory. As an artist, I work in a variety of media, ranging from the written word, photography, cinema, sound and collage, seeking, through all these media, to explore my most recurrent research questions: why and how do we tell ourselves?
My works are typically presented in the form of fanzines and self-published editions, film projections, readings, workshops, participatory pieces and community oriented events. This body of work has been presented in independent artistic programming circuits such as bookstores and cultural associations such as Ilha, XYZ Books; Tigre de Papel Bookstore; Hopscotch Berlin; Goela Association; Largo Residências; Cosmos; Fá.Lo Cr; NowHere; Livraria das Insurgentes; MOON - International Videopoetry Festival, among others.
© Patrícia Black. Still from a collective film shot and developed by Laboratório da Cave in 2022.
Links // https://linktr.ee/sofiapontopires
https://linktr.ee/sozinhaemcasa
Email // sofiasspires@gmail.com
Mobile // +351 916299798
Hey there!
I’m Sofia, a self-publisher, filmmaker and cultural mediator, with a fondness for alternative processes and collaboration and extensive experience in cultural production and community programming.
In all my concomitant areas of work, I understand my practice as intensely collaborative, driven by a tactile and analogical desire to recover materialities and to produce memorable encounters between people and ideas, always oriented towards the community. I believe in artistic creation and cultural mediation as tools for building dialogues and bridges between people that provoke debate, critical thinking and promote the sharing of perspectives. I also believe that the opening of accessible spaces where dialogue can take place in a non-polarized manner is extremely important and urgent for the subsistence of democracy, freedom of expression and of thought and this is what drives me both in my artistic creation as well as in my cultural initiatives.
As a cultural worker and organizer, I have worked, in a variety of roles, with renowned organizations, including Cinemateca Portuguesa, Wim Wenders Stiftung, O Som e a Fúria, Festival Iminente, Brotéria, Fábrica das Palavras – Biblioteca Municipal de Vila Franca de Xira and Molt Films.
In parallel, I have founded, produced and programmed, since 2019, Campo Aberto, a film club that is an open space for dialogue between emerging artistic production in the field of sound and image arts and that of the past. In 2020, I co-founded, the now-extinct Associação El Warcha Lisboa, which promoted social inclusion through collective action and the development of skills that facilitate socioeconomic integration, where I was responsible for activities related to cinema, publishing and photography.
In 2022, I co-founded Laboratório da Cave, an artistic collective dedicated to the practice of filming on 16mm film and small formats and interested in artisanal and ecological development processes. I occasionally collaborate with other artistic and cultural collectives of a more informal nature, such as Sustainable Darkroom, amongst others.
© El Warcha Lisboa, 2020.
Collective exhibitions
2025
May - Fanzineist Vienna Art Book & Zine Fair, Semperdepot, Vienna, Austria
March - AOS PAPÉIS, Livraria Baobá, Lisboa
2024
October - ARTE PELA PALESTINA , Casa do Comum, Lisboa
May - ATLAS INTERIOR, Trius Hotels, Alfama, Lisboa
2023
December - Ocupação Laboratório da Cave, NowHere, Lisboa
December - Pequenos Formatos, Galeria Monumental, Lisboa
June/July - Too Much of a Good Things, XYZ Books, Lisboa
2022
March - Mostra de Artes Visuais – Visual Arts Exhibition, Silos, Caldas da Rainha, Portugal.
2021
October - Festival Iminente “Bairros”, El Warcha Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal
Screenings & readings
2025
May - screening of the collective film “Correspondencias” at CO- Festival, Zumzeig Cinecooperatiu, Barcelona, Cataluña
2024
October - screening of “Olha Bem” at MOON - Festival Internacional de Videopoesia, Oeiras, Portugal.
June - collective screening organized by ARK.film.lab, at 76A space, curated by ARKfilmLAB, Testacoda and 70FPS&SEC, in Naples, Italy.
2022
December - collective screening of Laboratório da Cave’s films at Cosmos / Cinema no Cosmos, Lisboa, Portugal
July - collective screening of Casa do Xisto’s 16mm films at Curtas Vila do Conde, Vila do Conde, Portugal
2020
March - Second public reading of the Long Distance Callers collective “Tradução Simultânea” [Simultaneous Translation], Tigre de Papel bookshop Lisboa
Uma razão, uma estação, a vida inteira... , 2013 - 2023, in exhibition view at “Too Much of a Good Thing” �at XYZ Books, Lisboa, 2023 photo by Ana Paganini
“MINISTRY/DEPARTMENT OF ERROR”,
POSTAL ART PARTICIPATORY PIECE, 2025
In the context of the collective project UFA, developed alongside Catarina Real (Color Therapy) and Maria Bernardino (Touch Therapy), which promotes the intersection between artistic creation and care practices with the support of DGARTES. Sofia Pires, an expert in the repetition of errors by occasion and by inclination, calls for the sharing of errors, via post. The request is simple: that you share mistakes that you have been carrying for longer than you would like so that, leaving the weight on the postcard, you feel lighter.
From the smallest to the biggest mistakes, from those that you learn from immediately to those that continue to be repeated, in this letterbox-shaped therapy, all mistakes are a balm for the growing pains, your own and those of others, and all are treated with guaranteed confidentiality and anonymity.
Send your mistakes anonymously to 💌 �LETRA A, Rua Professor Mira Fernandes, Lote 10, Letra A, 1900-064, Olaias, Lisboa, Portugal
More info at: https://ufaufaufa.xyz/
April - September 2025
With an heartfelt thanks to Mika Aono artist and founder of the printmaking studio Atelier Ghostbirds, Caldas da Rainha.
Photo © Sofia Pires, 2025.
Photo © Sofia Pires, 2025.
Photo © Sofia Pires, 2025.
Photos © Sofia Pires, 2025.
Photo © Maria Giovanna Mura, 2025.
Photo © Sofia Pires, 2025.
Photo © Sofia Pires, 2025.
Photo © Sofia Pires, 2025.
“LÍNGUAS”, CHILDREN’S BOOK, 2025
Dedicated to my three year-old niece, this is a book for bilingual families and children, who don't know yet how to read but who are becoming interested in letters and numbers, to teach them how to count to 10 in their two (or plus) native tongues.
Printed at Two Cents Press, with the support of Culture Moves Europe, funded by Goethe Institut and the European Union. Printed with moveable type in the letterset press, making use of dry-point and photopolymer matrices. Edition of 30, signed and hand numbered by the author. Saddle stitch binding, on Fabriano paper.
Full presentation of the book here https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/12P1rWPYrMw3DZKRh6SlJQjNXaXoEpQfvOIcbY42ha0w/edit?usp=sharing
April 2025
Photos © Sofia Pires, 2025.
Photos © Sofia Pires, 2025.
Photos © Sofia Pires, 2025.
Photos © Sofia Pires, 2025.
Photo © Franco Marinai, 2025.
Photos © Sofia Pires, 2025.
“BOLSOS ERRANTES”,
SERIES OF UPCYCLED POCKETS, 2025 - ongoing
Series of upcycled pockets that can be attached to different pieces of clothing, hence why their errant/itinerant naming and nature. Printed in letterpress with moveable type at Two Cents Press in Serrazzano, Italy.
April 2025 - ongoing
Photos © Sofia Pires, 2025.
“CORRESPONDÊNCIAS”,
COLLECTIVE FILM, 2025
“Correspondencias” is an audiovisual exchange, that was thought of as a kind of blind date, between a collective of artists who create analog moving images, based in Lisbon, Europe, and a group of artists who explore sound, spread across Latin America.
Laboratório da cave’s “Correspondence” working group: Violena Ampudia, Bibi Dória, Ian Capillé, Sofia Pires, Marie Fages, Maura Grimaldi, Juliana Julieta, Patrícia Black, Pedro Ivo Carvalho, Joana Lourenço, Aline Belfort.
Sound group: Sofía Balbontín, José Homer & Altrd Being, Luis Lepchak, Daniela Cano, Jésus Bermudez, Ayrton Pauls, Rafael Ramirez, Marisol Cao Milan, Sara Fernández & Frida Arroyo Chiu.
Performers: Violena Ampudia, Marie Fages, Joana Lourenço, Juliana Julieta, Aline Belfort, Lala Teles, Otilia Vaz , Lais Dória, Rita Grancho, Margarida Soares, Gio Lourenço, Maura Grimaldi, Patrícia Black, Natália Mendonça, Cecília Corujo, and all the cities’ amazing extras and passersby.
Laboratório da cave, 2025
More info about the project, here:
https://sites.google.com/view/labdacave/projetos-projects/correspond%C3%AAncias-correspondence
More info about Laboratório da Cave, here:
https://sites.google.com/view/labdacave/home
World premiere: 23.05.2025 | 19H00 - Correspondencias @ CO- Festival @ Zumzeig Cinecooperatiu, Barcelona, Cataluña
SCREENER available upon request
Photos © “Correspondencias”,Still 1, 2025.
Photos © “Correspondencias”,Still 2, 2025.
Photos © “Correspondencias”,Still 3, 2025.
“O QUE SOBRA?”,
SHORT FILM, 2022 - 2025
My contribution to the collective film “Correspondencias” is titled “O que sobra?” [Int. Title: What Remains?] and it is an interrogation on what is left after time has passed. It makes use of original images shot on 16mm and developed with caffenol and found and repurposed footage.
Synopsis:: What remains? Time will tell.
Technical details:: Sofia Pires, 1'36'', b&w and color sound, 16mm developed with caffenol transferred to HD, 2023.
With:: Sofia Pires, Rita Grancho, Margarida Soares, Pedro Ivo, Marie Fages, Violena Ampudia and other members of the artist-run lab Laboratório da Cave, in front of, behind and next to the camera because cinema is a work involving many hands
Sound:: To be announced
SCREENER available upon request
Photos © “O que Sobra?”,Still 1, Sofia Pires, 2022 - 2025.
“O QUE SOBRA?”,
SHORT FILM, 2022 - 2025
Photos © “O que Sobra?”,Still 2, Sofia Pires, 2022 - 2025.
Photos © “O que Sobra?”,Still 3, Sofia Pires, 2022 - 2025.
“O FORA D’ÁGUA”,
LUNAR CALENDAR FOR 2025, 2024
Photos © Sara Pires, 2024.
Photos © Sara Pires, 2024.
“O Fora D’Água” is a foldable A3 lunar calendar for the year 2025 that plays with the themes and elements of the centenary Portuguese farmers’ almanac “O Borda d’Água”.
Cutting and pasting the original elements of the 2025’s “Borda d’Água”, I crafted a lunar calendar using my scissors and glue to produce a calendar that plays with the words “Borda d’Água” (on the edge of the water) in order to adapt them to “Fora d’Água” (outside of the water) and to make it a calendar useful for everyone that feels like a fish out of water or just like a fish swimming against the stream.
Edition of 50. December 2024 - January 2025.
Signing and folding “O Fora D’Água”s, December 2024 Photo © Margarida Soares, 2024.
“O FORA D’ÁGUA”,
LUNAR CALENDAR FOR 2025, 2024
Details “O Fora D’Água”, Photos © Sofia Pires, 2024.
Details “O Fora D’Água”, Photos © Sofia Pires, 2024.
“VAMOS RETROS-PENSAR?”,
FANZINE, 2024
The A4 (opened), A6 (folded), fanzine “Vamos Retros-pensar?” was a fanzine produced by me to deliver to all my students at the end of the workshop of diary writing (“Oficina de Escrita de Diários”) in the last session of December 2024, at Fábrica das Palavras - Biblioteca Municipal de Vila Franca de Xira.
I wanted all my students to have a very portable and foldable fanzine with a few writing prompts to help them sustain their journaling practice by provoking some reflections at the end of a week, a month, a semester or a year.
In a literal translation, the title of the fanzine can be understood as “Let’s retros-think?”, joining in a playful manner the words “retrospective” and “thinking” and some of the questions are writing prompts such as:
When opened, the inside of the fanzine has a A4 poster of the “O Fora d’Água” lunar calendar (refer back to page 15), with enough space to write important dates, cycles and other notes.
Edition of 50. December 2024 - January 2025
Photos © Sara Pires, 2024.
Details “Vamos Retros-pensar?” one page foldable fanzine A6/A4, Photos © Sofia Pires, 2024.
Photos © Felipe Soares, 2025.
“CADERNO DE VIAGEM” Fanzine, 2024, and “mancheia ou fio (semi) vivo”, fanzine shelf on cardboard and mixed media (acrylic, collage, markers and nails), 2025
Exhibition views of these and other works at the collective exhibition “Aos Papéis” at Livraria Baobá in Lisbon, in March 2025.
Exhibition flyer © Collective creation, 2025.
Photos © Sofia Pires, 2025.
Exhibition views of some of my works at the collective exhibition “Aos Papéis” at Livraria Baobá in Lisbon, in March 2025.
“CADERNO DE VIAGEM” or “Picollo Caderno Italiano di Passeggiata”, Fanzine, 2024
A classic travel notebook or a notebook of various walks through different Italian cities where, through clippings and scraps of everyday debris, I attempt an elementary learning of the language that I have always found to be the most beautiful in the world ~ Italian ~ in its most tacit and latent senses, I hope.
Technical Details: Folded fanzine size A5, open size A4, printed digitally in color, on 80g Fabriano paper, ecologically responsible with environmental excellence label, saddle staple binding. Limited edition of 40 numbered and hand-signed copies by the author.
Fall 2024.
Photos © Sofia Pires, 2024.
“COR - ACÇÃO” ARTIST BOOK, 2024
Artist Book that plays with the words “COR - COLOR” - “ACÇÃO - ACTION” - and “CORAÇÃO - HEART”. Single hand drawn edition, made for a friend who had a heart problem.
May 2024
Photos © Sofia Pires, 2024.
“Io e L’autismo” - �Editorial and curatorial coordination, 2024
Editorial coordination, pagination, proofreading and curatorial assistance to the publishing of the fanzine “Io e L’autismo” by Viola Zenobi and to the montage of her homonymous exhibition at Livraria das Insurgentes, in Lisbon, in May 2024. Fanzine printed in digital color, on recycled paper, saddle staple binding.
More info https://www.instagram.com/p/C7EeJjKCfvD/?img_index=1
Photo © Luana Loria, 2024.
Exhibition views. Photo © Fátima Matos, 2024.
Exhibition views. Photos © Fátima Matos, 2024.
Fanzine views. Photos © Sofia Pires, 2024.
Fanzine views. Photos © Sofia Pires, 2024.
Fanzine views. Photos © Sofia Pires, 2024.
“O Mal da Espera” - �Fanzine, original collages and silkscreen run, 2023
Publication of the independent fanzine “O Mal da Espera” (2023), in an edition of 30 copies with hand-glued interventions, signed and numbered by the author. Accompanied by the silkscreen edition, printed by Edições da Ruína, in a run of 30 copies, printed in 4 colours, 70 x 50 cm, signed and numbered by the author.
Fanzine views. Photos © Sofia Pires, 2023.
Silkscreen view at a small press fair. Photo © Sofia Pires, 2023.
“O Mal da Espera” - Fanzine, 2023
Fanzine views. Photos © Sofia Pires, 2023.
Synopsis: The evil of waiting is about this: gathering, saving, sewing, sparing. It’s about getting by until the end of the month and starting all over again. The evil of waiting is to continue to wait without having a clue of whether or not the waiting will continue….
Details: edition of 30 copies with hand-glued interventions, signed and numbered by the author. Printed in black and white digital print, on recycled paper, cover in orange cardboard. Staple binding.
Fanzine views. Photos © Sofia Pires, 2023.
Fanzine views. Photos © Sofia Pires, 2023.
Fanzine views. Photos © Sofia Pires, 2023.
Exhibition views at Fanzineist Vienna Art Book & Zine Fair, Semperdepot, Vienna, Austria . �Photos © Alina Andrei, 2025.
“O Mal da Espera” - �Original collages, 2023
“O Mal da Espera 1”, 2023
Mixed media collage (found scraps, colored paper, and oil crayon) on black cardboard, approx A4
“O Mal da Espera 2”, 2023
Mixed media collage (found scraps, colored paper, embroidery and oil crayon) on black cardboard, approx A4
“O Mal da Espera” - �Original collage and silkscreen, 2023
“O Mal da Espera 2”, 2023
Mixed media collage (found scraps, colored paper, embroidery and oil crayon) on black cardboard, approx A4
Silk screen edition, printed by Edições da Ruína in 30 copies, printed in 4 colours, 70 x 50 cm, signed and numbered by the author.
Photo © Darío Marroche, Microutopías Press, 2023
Silkscreen drying © Sofia Pires, 2023
Silk screen edition, printed by Edições da Ruína in 30 copies, printed in 4 colours, 70 x 50 cm, signed and numbered by the author.
“O Mal da Espera” - Silk screen run, 2023
Silk Screen view in the living room of a collector. �Photo © Francisco Mouga, 2023.
Silkscreen view set up in a Chinese Medicine office. �Photo © Maria Bernardino, 2023
Silkscreen view set up in the wall of a collector. �Photo © Rui Luís, 2023
LOOK CAREFULLY
Synopsis:: Look carefully and pay attention.
Tech specs:: Sofia Pires, 1'16'', b&w, sound, 16mm developed with caffenol, transferred to HD, 2022 – 2023.
With:: Marie Fages ( mariefages.com ) and Ian Capillé ( iancapille.com/ ), in front, behind and on the sidelines of the camera because cinema is a collective work
Sound:: Muddy Waves ( muddywaves.bandcamp.com/ )
Project developed during the artistic residency at Casa do Xisto ( casadoxisto.org/ ), in Portugal in the Summer of 2022.
This piece is primarily meant to be screened as a video installation on a large woven piece of fabric.
SCREENER available upon request
“Olha Bem” © Film stills, Sofia Pires, 2023.
“OLHA BEM”,
SHORT FILM, 2022 - 2023
“1⁄4 escuro | Bitola” - Fanzine, 2022
Photo © Maura Grimaldi, 2022
“1⁄4 escuro | Bitola” - Fanzine, 2022
Editorial coordination, pagination and contributions to the collective fanzine “1⁄4 escuro | Bitola” published
by the artist-run film lab Laboratório da Cave, in Lisbon. 1st edition - [SOLD OUT]; now on its 2nd edition.
More info
https://sites.google.com/view/labdacave/home , https://www.instagram.com/p/CmW0Ew4MeVO/
Each last page had a surprise intervention from one member of the collective�© Maura Grimaldi, 2022
Photos © Laboratório da Cave, 2022
Each last page had a surprise intervention from one member of the collective © Laboratório da Cave, 2022
“CAMPO ABERTO” - 2022
Editorial concept, coordination, contributions and publication of the collective book that documents and materializes the first editions of Cineclube Campo Aberto (between March 2019 and June 2022). Founding and programming of Campo Aberto cine-club since 2019.
More info:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Ck8VSTAq3kD/?img_index=1
Fotografia: Sofia Pires, Junho de 2022
“THINGS I WOULD LIKE TO TELL MY STRAIGHT WHITE MALE BOSSES”,
FANZINE, 01.05.2023
Photos © Sofia Pires, 2023.
Mini fanzine with the self explanatory title “Things I would like to tell my straight white male bosses” in solidarity with the working people of this world, on the first of May 2023.
It is an entirely handmade fanzine, printed in black and white on a single sheet of orange A4 paper, written mostly in English. Edition of 50 copies, numbered by hand by the author.
[SOLD OUT]
“THINGS I WOULD LIKE TO TELL MY STRAIGHT WHITE MALE BOSSES”, FANZINE, 01.05.2023
Photos © Sofia Pires, 2023.
“X-RAY OF THE WORLD” - 2022
Contributions to the collective fanzine “re:source” published by the Sustainable Darkroom in 2022.
Pgs. 109 and 193: X-Ray of the World, Sofia Pires, 2022. �Intervention on obsolete X-ray paper, later photographed digitally.
More info: https://sustainabledarkroom.com/products/re-source
Photos © Sustainable Darkroom, 2022
X-Ray of the World, Sofia Pires, 2022. �Intervention on obsolete X-ray paper, later photographed digitally.�Photos © Sofia Pires, 2022.
X-Ray of the World, Sofia Pires, 2022. �Intervention on obsolete X-ray paper, later photographed digitally.
“8H NÃO FAZEM UM DIA”,
FANZINE, 2021
Fanzine about the 8H of a workday of a worker who just wants to finish a set of tasks and never manages to do it, due to neverending interruptions.
Self-published A5 zine, printed in black and white digital ink, on blue paper, staple bound and written in Portuguese. Edition of 30 copies, numbered and hand-signed by the author.
Most epic achievement of this fanzine: it was distributed as a goodbye gift to soon to be past colleagues after one of its most fervent readers decided to quit her 9 to 5 job and leave this behind as a souvenir.
1st edition - [SOLD OUT];
now on its 2nd edition.
Photos © Sofia Pires, 2021.
Photos © Sofia Pires, 2021.
Photos © Sofia Pires, 2021.
Photos © Sofia Pires, 2021.
Photos © Sustainable Darkroom, 2020
“This Is (Still) Not A Solution” - 2020
Editorial consulting and contributions to the collective fanzine “This Is (Still) Not A Solution” published by the Sustainable Darkroom in 2020.
Physical edition is SOLD OUT.
More info https://sustainabledarkroom.com/products/this-is-still-not-a-solution.
“THIS IS NOT A SOLUTION” - 2019
Editorial coordination and contributions to the collective fanzine “This is not a solution” by the London Alternative Photography Collective published at A Ilha XYZ Books in Lisbon in June 2019. Physical edition is SOLD OUT.
More info:
https://sustainabledarkroom.com/products/this-is-not-a-solution-digital
Photos © Sustainable Darkroom, 2019
“LONG DISTANCE READINGS” - 2019 - 2020
Readings of texts written by Colectivo Chamada de Longa Distância (composed by Sofia Pires, Mar Correia, Roxana Martins) at Livraria Hopscotch in Berlin and Livraria Tigre de Papel in Lisbon.
We met in Caldas da Rainha. And we got closer, curiously, through cities where we lived, around Europe: Amsterdam, Ghent, Berlin, Lisbon. Perhaps it was a terrible desire for correspondence. Maybe it was just the need to build some community, no matter how precarious it was in our wandering around the world. Perhaps it was the search for an echo, a listener or, more often than not, an interpreter. What kept us together, exchanging these notes, like letters, about cities and things, we will never be able to explain. We share this desire (and, above all, this need) to write about the cities where we live and about ourselves, also, of course, in those cities. We are, therefore, for more and less accidental reasons, a collective of itinerant writers and readers who, between countries, between borders and cities, like to express what they write through reading because only in this gesture of oral transmission do they believe they can return to the transience typical of the city(s) what is written also in the ephemerality of days. As rarely do all the members of this collective share the same city at the same time, their public readings have become a small form of meeting where, through the oral sharing of their correspondence, often parallel and perpendicular, they replicate, in each session, the impermanence of their daily writing gestures with the communities of reader-listeners, listener-writers, who welcome them in their readings. In these readings, we share a little more of our correspondence of astonishment and strangeness.
(extract from one of my readings)
ela julgava ter esquecido
a sonoridade precisa
da pequena língua
que a havia formado.
pôs-se a andar, passo a passo,
fez por se rodear
de todas as línguas
que lhe seriam
para sempre
* talvez *
* apenas *
estranhas
na sua monumentalidade
das estruturas
e dos sistemas
despiam-na da excepção
da sonoridade do advérbio
M O D E R A D A M E N T E
convulso
...enfim....
de todos os cotovelos sistemáticos
onde debruçava
a sua irremediável
falta de concretez
e onde escondia
a sua ausência de envergadura épica
sob os pós enfeitados
de um excesso natural de perdição.
Mas um dia
o passou abrandou.
E ela regressou,
pelo ventre,
à cidade.
Auscultou-a
e a cidade estava viva.
As ruas sibilavam
a sua sonoridade mestiça,
tecida de todas as diásporas,
e a sua marcha contínua
estacou ali mesmo:
No momento em que,
lentamente,
se auscultou a si própria
e percebeu
que ela sim,
há muito,
era a paciente
convalescente.
A paciência
essa:
tem-lhe faltado.
Mas a língua primeira não se esquece
e as cidades que nos fizeram
são nossas.
Postcard by Sofia Pires, published and distributed during reading number two in Lisbon, March 2020.
Selection of collages, stills and photography works in progress - 2021 - present
“Eu ainda quero fazer uma grande festa com os retalhos do mundo” - 2024
Mixed technique (collage, embroidery, chinese ink and oil pastel) on cardboard, approx. A3.
[SOLD, in fundraising for the liberation of Palestine]
“Brincar aos crescidos?
Que grande seca!” - 2021
Mixed technique (collage, embroidery, chinese ink and markers) on cardboard, approx. A5.
“LÉXICO SOLAR” - 2021
Series of 5 one of a kind cyanotype “solar collages” postcards (10 x 15 cm), signed and numbered by the author.
[SOLD OUT]
“Uma razão, uma estação, a vida inteira…” 2013 - 2023” - 2023
Inkjet printed photograph on 310 gm Fineart paper, 50x33 cm, Ed. 1/3 + 1 PA
“Impressões Negativas” - 2013 - ongoing
Series of hand drawn and scratched interventions over 35mm and 120mm found or discarded negatives
“Impressões Negativas” - 2013 - ongoing
Series of hand drawn and scratched interventions over 35mm and 120mm found or discarded negatives
“É permitido permitir…” -
2021 - ongoing
Series of embroidered flags on different shapes and sizes that treasure and allow basic human gestures such as dancing, kissing, playing, making mistakes, etc.
[ALL IN PRIVATE COLLECTIONS]
“É permitido brincar”, 2025 - ongoing. Photo © Mariana Camacho, 2024
“É permitido dançar”, 2021 - ongoing. Photo © Sofia Pires
“Bora viver?”, 2021 - ongoing. Photo © Sofia Pires
Residencies
03-04.2025 - CULTURE MOVES EUROPE at TWO CENTS PRESS, Serrazzano, Italy
11-12.2022 - DEAR DOC 2022 – A COMUNIDADE PERMANENTE, Doc’s Kingdom em parceria com La Vulcanizadora, Mediateca Onshore, LUX e The Flaherty 2022
10.2022 - DOCLISBOA SEMINÁRIO DE REALIZAÇÃO, Doclisboa em parceria com UnionDocs – Center for Documentary Art, Seminário de realização composto por três sessões onde os participantes, orientados por Christopher Allen (UnionDocs), Jenny Miller (UnionDocs), os críticos convidados do programa RAW (Karina Solórzano, Salvador Amores e Mariana Souza) e realizadores convidados (Sasha Pirker e Andrés Jurado), exploram exercícios de cinema radical através da investigação e discussão colectivas.
07.2022 – CASA DO XISTO, LABORATÓRIO IMERSIVO DE 16MM, Casa do Xisto, Macieira de Rates, Portugal, com os formadores Ricardo Leite (Laboratório da Torre, Porto, Portugal) e Steve Cossman (Mono No Aware, Nova Iorque, Estados Unidos da América)
05.2022 - YOUTH DEBATING THE FUTURE OF EUROPE, Encontro em Barcelona organizado pela associação local Teleduca com representantes das diferentes organizações que constituem o consórcio do projecto U4EU e participantes locais e internacionais.
08.2020 - CINE À RODA, Construção e programação do cinema itinerante Cine à Roda com o El Warcha Lisboa e Cineclube Campo Aberto, no contexto do festival Bairro em Festa. Largo Residências, Intendente, Lisboa.
06.2019 - THE SUSTAINABLE DARKROOM PROJECT, London Alternative Photography Collective A Ilha, XYZ Books, Lisboa.
04.2019 - RESIDÊNCIA LIVRE NAS OFICINAS DO CONVENTO Associação Cultural de Arte e Comunicação sediada no Convento de São Francisco em Montemor-o-Novo.
09.2018 – THE CITY AS ARCHIVE, Kunsthistorisches Institut, Max-Planck-Institut, Florença, Itália.
Photo © Sofia Pires, 2025
SELECTION OF EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES
2019 - 2025
- Oficina de retalhos de memórias, Biblioteca Municipal de Vila Franca de Xira
- Oficina de escrita de diários, Biblioteca Municipal de Vila Franca de Xira
- Oficina de curadoria e edição de uma fanzine e exposição, Livraria das Insurgentes, Lisboa
- Oficina de Manifestos Insurgentes, Livraria das Insurgentes, Lisboa
- Oficina de calendários e colagens desenvolvida e mediada por mim para crianças e jovens entre os 6 e 11 anos no contexto das Colónias de Férias do Projeto (RE)age em Rede – CLDS 4G na Escola Básica 2/3 D. António da Costa em Almada [I]
- Oficina de serigrafia desenvolvida e mediada por mim e pelo Bruno Lavos Marques em parceria com o IMVF – Instituto Marquês de Valle Flôr e com a associação El Warcha Lisboa no contexto do Festival à Babuja – Festival de Street Art do Seixal [EWLx];
- Oficina comunitária de realização e produção de curtas-metragens desenvolvido e conduzido por mim, pela Inês Marques e pelo Julien Fargetton com as crianças do bairro social da Ladeirinha no Reguengo Grande, Lourinhã, no contexto do projecto Próxima Paragem organizado pela associação local Sombronautas – Teatro do Inefável, em parceria com os Esquilos para as Nozes e El Warcha Lisboa, com o apoio do programa Bairros Saudáveis [EPN] [EWLx];
- Oficina de cianotipia para crianças no Museu de Almada – Casa da Cidade, em Almada, desenvolvido em co-autoria com a Teresa Chow [I];
- Oficina de colagens, fanzines e diários de reflexão no espaço ECOA, em Almada, desenvolvido em co-autoria com a Carolina Borges Sacoto [EWLx];
- Oficina de escrita criativa e histórias orais “Cartas às Ruas da Nossa Vida” [EWLx];
- Oficina de produção e edição de curtas a partir de materiais de arquivo [EPN] [EWLx];
- Oficina de programação de cinema e de construção do cinema itinerante Cine à Roda. [EPN] [EWLx];
- Oficina de foley e sonorização de filmes mudos em domínio público com alunos da Escola Básica Actor Vale em Lisboa [G].
Photos © El Warcha Lisboa
Photos © El Warcha Lisboa
Photo © Claúdia Henriques, 2024
Photo © Claúdia Henriques, 2024
Photo © Fátima Matos, 2024
SELECTED PRESS
- Interview for Time Out Lisbon. Spring
- Interview with Catarina Real for the online contemporary arts platform Artecapital
- Within Living Memory: a Portrait of the
Wim Wenders Stiftung, 101a of Journal
of Film Preservation (10.2019) published
COLLECTIONS
Represented in private collections.
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Art Library
BEDETECA do Porto
Two Cents Press
Updated on my newsletter, here:
https://sozinhaemcasa.substack.com/
Sign up to stay in the loop!
💌
NEXT FAIRS, WORKSHOPS AND EVENTS
««««
Photo © Sofia Pires, June 2025
Until soon,
sofia*
Links web // https://linktr.ee/sofiapontopires
Vimeo // https://vimeo.com/sofiapires
(other screeners available by request)
Email // sofiasspires@gmail.com
Mobile // +351916299798
Extract from a page of the self-published fanzine
“Caderno de Viagem”, 2024
Photo by Franco Marinai, Two Cents Press, Serrazzano, Italy, 2025.
last update
september 2025