More than an exhibition, this moment is the affirmation of a Museum on the move, where art, technology, community and territory intertwine in a dialogue that involves the local, the global and the contemporary. This new phase of the Museum reflects the work carried out as part of the Artist Residencies, supported by the MEO Foundation, which gave artists the opportunity to investigate, experiment and create in situ, consolidating the identity of the Zer0 Museum as a space for thought, production and sharing. The programme also features a number of new works and experimental revisits that occupy the Museum's different spaces - from the entrance to the terrace, from the silos to the immersive room, shaping an intergenerational and transdisciplinary journey where contemporary creation manifests itself in multiple languages: visual, sound, kinetic, immersive and digital.
The programme for the Museu Zer0's II Momento de Abertura begins with two one-off but deeply symbolic moments for the Museum's history and future. The first is the meeting between Sonoscopia and "Resistentes", a traditional Portuguese music group from Santa Catarina da Fonte do Bispo - a collective performance that combines contemporary sound experimentation with the musical roots of the local community. This collaboration, born out of the dialogue between intangible heritage and artistic research, sets the tone for the opening of the Museu Zer0's II Moment, reaffirming its connection to the territory, popular culture and the community. The second moment is Sil0, an audiovisual video mapping work created by Openfield (2025), which transforms the unique architecture of the Museu Zer0's silos into a living organism of light and sound.
"This site-specific intervention reveals visual and sound layers that dialogue with the original structure, its materiality and its memory. Inspired by the founding concept of the Museu Zer0 - a digital art museum based on the idea of origin, emptiness and potential, Sil0 creates a bridge between the real and digital worlds, between the visible and the imaginary, proposing a sensory journey that transforms the building into a metaphor for the very essence of the Museum: a space for transformation, experimentation and fulfilment."
At the entrance, Inês Mendes Leal's work Barlavento / Sotavento evokes the imaginary line that separates the Algarve into two halves - west and east, a division moulded over time by the action of the winds and the geography of the territory. The term "windward", of "nautical origin", indicates the side that receives the wind, referring to the breath that comes from the west and that for centuries has marked the climate and rhythm of this region. Also at the entrance, the Permanent Memory device, byAR, offers a mixed reality experience, making visible the history of the building, the memories and the three-dimensional contents that are projected onto the Museum's physical and digital space. In the silos, the installation Trapped Ecologies, by Francisca Rocha Gonçalves and Christian Dimpker, transforms the industrial space into a sensory organism. Made up of nets, projections, smoke and sound, the work reflects on natural and artificial ecosystems, and how humans interfere and inscribe themselves in their dynamics - a reflection that touches directly on contemporary environmental and technological challenges and the urgency of artistic thinking committed to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
There are two works in the Organ Room: Luís Fernandes presents Aural Device #2, where sound becomes matter and architecture in an investigation into frequency, resonance and perception. The other is 1:2, by Tatiana Macedo, a video installation based on the relationship between the gaze, the body, the place and the image. Through a subtle and rhythmic montage, the artist questions the mirror and duplication, presence and distance, summoning the viewer to an intimate experience of observation and displacement. In the Exhibition Room, a group of works establishes a cartography of contemporary practices: JEZABEL, by Carincur, João Pedro Fonseca and Gonçalo Guiomar, is a kinetic and luminous installation in which robotics, artificial intelligence and organic matter merge into a hybrid body in movement.
JEZABEL inhabits space as a living and enigmatic presence, where sound, light and mechanical gesture dialogue with human perception. The work proposes a reflection on the limits between the natural and the artificial, between the sensitive body and the thinking machine, a kind of artistic organism in permanent transformation. % (static), by Pedro Tudela, presents two iron discs amplified and put into vibration, transforming sound into physical matter and spatial tension. In this piece, noise, echo and reverberation build a dense soundscape where listening becomes a tactile experience. % (static) exposes sound as energy and body, inviting us to perceive its invisible forms and how they are inscribed in space and time.
Finite landscapes or memories of a place I haven't been, by Mariana Vilanova, is a video installation that explores memory, time, absence and what we are doing to the earth. Through projected images and sound, it constructs an emotional territory where the real and the imagined are confused. The work proposes a poetic reflection on the construction of place - between record and memory, image and experience - but Mariana warns us: "We have the idea that digital is immaterial and that we will therefore have almost eternal access to information, but the digital world depends on electronic components made from rare metals found in the earth's soil, such as gold and lithium, which can make this access ephemeral and unsustainable."
VVV (Zero), by Pedro Tudela & Miguel Carvalhais, is a sound and light installation that creates a spatial dialogue between different sources of sound and light. A suspended loudspeaker and a set of three loudspeakers arranged on the floor establish a continuous game of calls and responses, in a circular movement, which involves the visitor and transforms the space into an acoustic and visual body. Atlas - (Rain), by Francisco Pedro Oliveira, combines sound, glass, metal and vibration, transforming the space into a resonant surface. The sound, amplified and reflected by different materials, creates a liquid and pulsating sensory landscape, where the ear and body are traversed by waves and frequencies.
At the Centre for Artistic Creation and Experimentation (CECA), José Jesus presents Physical Blue at the Door (Landscape as Engine), a work that reflects on the landscape as an engine of thought and energy. The artist combines video, 3D printing and mechanical movement to create a living sculpture that breathes between nature and technology.
In the Multipurpose Room, Miguel Soares is showing SpaceJunk (2001), an emblematic work of Portuguese digital art, which ironises space conquest and the accumulation of technological waste. This work was chosen by Sérgio Mah and is from the EDP Foundation's art collection.
On the terrace, the Cinema in Cycle takes place, curated by António Costa Valente, in partnership with the 29th International Encounters of Cinema, Television, Video and Multimedia (AVANCA) - an extension of the programme that reinforces the dialogue between moving image and media arts.
In the Immersive Room, MAOTIK presents Where Land Ends, Everything Flows, a generative art installation that transforms data and digital landscapes into a sensory and immersive experience, evoking the relationship between humans and the planet, between the natural and the technological.
In a cross-cutting dialogue with the entire programme, Professor Henrique Silva, a central figure in Portuguese art, presents a selection of videos from his personal archive, curated by Henrique Silva and Emília Simão - works that evoke the beginnings of video art in Portugal, including historical pieces from VideoPorto and artists such as Ção Pestana and Silvestre Pestana.
The II Opening Moment of the Museu Zer0 is thus a celebration of artistic making as a process, where experimentation, technology and critical thinking intersect with memory, imagination and collective responsibility. The Museu Zer0, as a Digital Art Centre, assumes a humanist and contemporary vision, committed to sustainability, inclusion, education and access to culture - principles that align with the SDGs and with the conviction that art should serve knowledge, the community and the future.
