This book by Teresa Ribeiro shows the experience of Intendente car workshops in Lisbon, in an intimate look at these spaces. Old, endangered workshops with many stories to tell ...The book follows a color path. The vivid and intense colors that fill the workshops.
Some photographs in this book are part of the exhibition of the XI Photographic Narratives at Intendente, at Casa Independente, in Largo do Intendente, in Lisbon, from 11.4.2020 to 15.02.2021.
About the series, United Photo Press photographer, Teresa Ribeiro writes:
As part of the edition of Intendente's Photographic Narratives, I toured Intendente car workshops for a few months. I visited a total of nine workshops, of which, for reasons of aesthetic design, only seven are included in this book.
In a neighborhood with such unique characteristics as Intendente, the oldest workshops date from 1947-1956, with the emblematic character that they contribute to our cultural and social history being indelible.
The workshops portrayed are probably the last to survive the irreversible technological advances, the strong market competition brought by the many companies that have been appearing in the periphery, and the services offered by brand groups. They have also survived the various economic crises over the past six decades and, more recently, the effects of an unexpected global pandemic.
The workers I spoke with dedicated their entire lives to improving their craft, always in the sense of finding new solutions and adapting their techniques to the needs of customers. Men who are creators of gadgets and gadgets that so often resemble real pieces of art, worthy of a museum.
In the larger workshops I found teams that employed up to twenty workers: mechanics, sheet metal workers, painters, washers, petrol workers, night guards, apart from apprentices and helpers.
On many occasions, especially in days gone by, workshops have held a special place in supporting the community living in the old neighborhood. “People were helped and the workshop was the salvation of many” - someone told me. Many residents deposited their house keys on a large keyring that was kept by the workshop, in a gesture of total neighborhood trust. They say that some even today come to fetch water from jerricans, leaving here grateful and with an open smile.
Now you no longer breathe the polluted air from the exhaust pipes, nor do you breathe in the aroma of hot oil. Times have changed a lot. For some, work has become scarce and several of the workshops are now garages for collecting taxis, vans or electric tuk-tuks.
The workers in these workshops are somewhat elusive men, almost always busy with their tasks and countless commitments. But, on better and less busy days, they are willing to share old memories and like to tell their stories. Stories from your workshops that are also the stories of your lives.
Whoever listens to them.
The work also includes a short story by Tiago Salazar, of which I transcribe a part:
The sickle, hammer and stringer
Every step has a weight and a dimension. When I joined the party (PCP) I received several warnings. (…)
The mechanic António Chiquita is in his garage Manique like Da Vinci for the sketches of flying devices.
I can say this by proving it.
One day I entered the Manique garage with a presumed hydraulic breakdown. I called Master Chiquita and told him about my suspicions. "Let's hear it," he said.
He then leaned over the bonnet and asked for a slight acceleration. “I must tell you that you are being too abrupt with the brakes. The problem is with the injector ”.
I heard the diagnosis, surprised by the certainty of what was said. The master always keeps a notebook in his pocket and a pencil behind his ear. “I make you a drawing” and he started doodling “the soul of the car”. “You want a car to last, so take care of it carefully and don't limit yourself to cleaning”.
My first car was a Datsun 1200 from 1972. DN on the license plate like the newspaper where I had sat as a trainee.
I bought it with the first salary from Raul Esperto, a mechanic and car driver who had paid for the competition. I went to Ponte de Sôr at Rodoviária Nacional and entered the workshop with eyes shining. Datsun was in the elevator tuning. I snuck into the silo's coffee shop and did more to learn than my father's basic lessons, between watching oil and tire pressure, steering play and the state of the pads.
Appreciating an engine was then as still today as a donkey looking at a palace. I went for a walk with Raul Smart at the wheel, explaining the science of rear traction to me.
(…)
There were many trips to Ponte de Sôr to have the hands, eyes and ears of the Smart to take care of Datsun. Until the day when like all lives everything ends. I came back from another review, with inflated tires and a cracking sun, going all the way along the curves of the dam when a patego entered the highway nonstop and almost took me to the Hereafter.
I just remember whirling in the air and landing in a ditch, the steering wheel cracked in half and half of the body outside the window. For unfathomable accidents, seconds before making the turn I opened the window on my side wide and spit out instead of being crushed between the roof and the seats.
The patego survived the ashesiness and fright and became my reader today. ”
Teresa Ribeiro, Intendente Workshops, 2020
Some photographs in this series are part of the exhibition of the XI Photographic Narratives at Intendente, which takes place in Lisbon, at Casa Independente, in Largo do Intendente, from November 4, 2020 to February 15, 2021 (in the Fascination of Photography here ).
Teresa Ribeiro . Someone who, in life as in the profession, as a psychotherapist, seeks to reconnect what never existed apart: body and mind.
Photography has been present in your life for many years, celebrating sunny days and saving you from storms and storms.
In 1983/84 he carried out an Advanced Training at the Portuguese Photography Institute (IPF). In 1994, he attended the photography course at Ar.Co. He developed several documentary photographic projects under the guidance of Nelson D 'Aires, in the Photographic Expression Movement (MEF).
He developed several creative projects and collaborations: In the Escr-Leitura: “construction of a video document”, with Pedro Sena Nunes (Lisbon, 2009); Participated in NextArt with the installation “Is there a Diva in each one of us?” and the installation “Abrigo para sem Abrigo”, in Jardim do Príncipe Real (Lisbon, 2010); Project “Uma Imagem Solidária”, with the Portuguese Telecommunications Foundation (Lisbon, 2018); at CROMA - Collective Exhibition of Photography Instagram (Oeiras, 2017); Collective Photography Exhibition at the Atmosfera M Gallery (Lisbon, 2018); Artistic Residency coordinated by photographer Pauliana Valente Pimentel (Algarve, 2020);
International Collective Exhibition “Celebration of the 30 Years of United Photo Press Creative Artists (UPP)”, at the Museu da Eletricidade (Funchal, 2020); Photographic Narratives of the Intendente (Lisbon, 2020).
You can see other works by Teresa Ribeiro at "Fascínio da Fotografia",
here .
To purchase the book, please contact the author
teresaribeiro08@gmail.com .
Teresa Ribeiro - Oficinas do Intendente
Photography: Teresa Ribeiro / Short story: Tiago Salazar / Graphic Design: Teresa Ribeiro and Jorge Coimbra / Cover: Catarina Marques / Author's Edition / December. 2020 / Portuguese and English / 26.1 x 21.1 cm / 60 pp / Brochure / 100 eg, numbered and signed / Softcover: Creator Gloss 350gr; core: Creator Gloss 170gr / Printing: digital laser / Stitched notebooks / ISBN: 9789893313077
