Artist’s Impressions – Patterns and traces from the past 

Swedish photographer Viveka Feder moved to the Algarve in 2016 and now lives in the beautiful seaside village of Salema. In a recent exhibition of her work in Vila do Bispo, she launched a booklet of photographs and text, plus a postcard collection, entitled Wonderings. Is this art, she asks? You decide. 

Viveka has always been interested in photography, but when she became captivated by the many abandoned houses around the Algarve, she felt compelled to tell their story. “All these questions, these wonderings,” she muses. “Traces of people who came and went; an old mattress, some food cans, a suitcase full of clothes, religious artefacts all abandoned. The houses, the people, the remains, all leave part of their soul.” 

The memories of those who lived in the houses are slowly fading. Through her lens, Viveka brings their stories back to life. Every photograph in her booklet is accompanied by a heartwarming and beautifully crafted story. Viveka is the narrator who takes us back to the past and reminds us how it was to live in rural, poverty-stricken Portugal. 

Did you know that in Portugal around 730,000 houses have been abandoned for one reason or another. Younger generations packed up and left for work, a better life and more opportunities in the larger cities. Leaving a property empty was a regular occurrence back in the 1960s; when the older members of the family died, no one wanted to take over the property. Portugal’s complicated inheritance laws didn’t help the situation. 

Viveka says bureaucratic hurdles and legal complexities make it difficult to repurpose or renovate abandoned properties. This has been a big problem in Portugal, however, the government is now offering incentives and encouraging families to sell old houses that are not yet in ruins. 

Viveka will continue her labour of love, collecting and documenting the “traces and patterns from the past” through her photography. 

She plans on hosting another exhibition of her work in the autumn in Lagoa but she is still awaiting confirmation of dates. 

You can order her booklet and postcards at viveka@lindasol.se 

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