Support Structure

Based on the initiative of the Instituto Lusíada de Cultura-ILC, a non-profit organisation founded in 1982 and declared of public utility in 1991, the idea is to create a museum dedicated to digital arts, rehabilitating a significant part of the premises of the Agricultural Cooperative in Santa Catarina da Fonte do Bispo, in a well-known rural area in the transition between the Algarve's barrocal and serra mountains.

The big challenge, and the gamble, comes precisely from the context in which this intervention will take place (abandoned industrial premises, in a territory that is still mainly agricultural, on the verge of desertification, but where extraordinary aspects and values of the Algarve's ethnography, culture and heritage remain alive) and the ambition to transform it into a centre dedicated to artistic production that will project the Algarve and Portugal internationally.

Starting with the mobilisation of our own capital and EU support, we have been able to count on the involvement and support of countless European, national and Algarvian entities and personalities in the collection of proposals and challenges, which have helped us to design the solution for rehabilitating and adapting old cereal warehouses into new, clearly multipurpose spaces dedicated to the creation, presentation and enjoyment of digital artworks.

On purpose, we didn't prepare it to house a specific collection or type of work, but we did invest in its infrastructure and equipment, at the service of the most modern and innovative digital art that can be produced and presented in Portugal today, using the most advanced technologies that support artistic creation and production today. Our collection will therefore be the result of the works that will be produced here or for here, without in any way neglecting the opportunities that will open up for us in the short term at national and international level.

Our partners will be the most important public organisations and associations for the digital arts in the Algarve, as well as at national level, but above all the partnerships we can leverage with European museums, which already exist at European level and with whom we are already working.

For its installation and operation, we will naturally be relying in a very special way on the knowledge and skills that exist at international, national and regional level, and it is also considered extremely important that the resident population and visitors adhere to and recognise it, so we are now going ahead with some initiatives to present and publicise it, involving all these audiences, through a plan of events and communication and promotional initiatives.

The Museum's main concept will be to create a place where digital works of art can be physically represented. This materialisation will involve sharing (the works to the public), but also hospitality (welcoming the resident artists). However, we don't intend to ensure the presentation of a set of predefined works, or a certain artistic area, but rather to challenge creators, artists, research centres, museums and universities (namely the University of the Algarve) to propose very innovative projects that will give us international visibility for their originality and aesthetic values.

Above all, we want to be a source of pride for the region, in a process of strong affirmation and international recognition. The idea is therefore to produce works of art in situ, conceived according to the existing exhibition spaces, supported by technologies that make it possible to exploit all the potential associated with digital domains. The works presented will therefore be site-specific (directly conceived to be exhibited in the museum's spaces, which are very strong in aesthetic terms), but will also come from the collections of other international museums.

The Zero Museum will also be based in a very unique way in the area where it will be installed. First and foremost, it will be located in the agricultural complex of the silos, which will undoubtedly stand out as a landmark. The museum's concept aims to explore processes of hybridisation of space: the search for continuity between landscape, architecture and art.