ADD FUEL is the work of Portuguese artist Diogo Machado.

Lisbon, Portugal
Organized by Junta de Freguesia da Estrela, produced in collaboration with Revigrés and Mistaker Maker.
Institucional partner Museu Nacional do Azulejo

This work completes the set of tile panels known as the Azulejo Route that extends along Infante Santo Avenue, in Lisbon, and which includes the work of renowned Portuguese artists such as Maria Keil (1959), Carlos Botelho (1959), Júlio Pomar and Alice Jorge (1959), Sá Nogueira (1959), and Eduardo Nery (1994 and 2001). The mural, entitled “Louvor da Vivacidade” (a play on words that can be read both as “praise to liveliness” and “praise to a living city”), intends to bring the azulejo as an art form into the present, maintaining its historical, cultural, architectural, and artistic characteristics while endowing it with a contemporary aesthetic and reading. For the creation of this extensive work, with some 200 square metres, I reinterpreted the azulejos that were already there, namely the historic panels in the stairways. From these panels I selected some key patterns and compositions which served as the basis for the creation of this panel that pays tribute to the other pieces. Within this controlled chaos, I created a dynamic composition with elements based on the history of the Estrela neighbourhood, a place once connected with fishermen with an intrinsic relationship with the sea. I believe that from the combination of all these elements arises the necessary strength this tribute deserves.

Photo © Ana Pierce