Pó de Vir a Ser
Stone Sculpture Department
Pó de Vir a Ser – Stone Sculpture Department is a cultural society that has as its mission to make sculpture available for everyone. The Pó [dust] in our name is stone dust, a very small particle that results from the sculptor’s work.
In order to understand the origins of Pó de Vir a Ser and its particular dynamic, we must go back to 1981, when Évora hosted the first International Stone Sculpture Symposium. This meeting, that gathered sixteen Portuguese and foreign sculptors to work for a month in the city put forward a revolutionary approach in sculptural practice, fostering “modern stone technology” and connecting artists, public space, community, and historic heritage. It was in this effervescent atmosphere that, driven by the more or less declared desire to make Évora the Stone Sculpture Capital, the seeds of Pó de Vir a Ser were sown. And it didn’t take long for something to sprout.
In 1986, the former slaughterhouse of Évora was converted into a space for artistic produc-tion, devoted to stone sculpture, and named as the Stone Sculpture Department of the Évora Cultural Center. Since then, we have sought to promote a direct connection between artists and our raw material of choice -Portuguese stone.
Pó is a platform that seeks to provide creators and the community with the tools for the di-rect carving of our cultural and artistic reality. Our headquarters is the Former Slaughter-house of Évora, a decommissioned industrial space located in the historic center of the UNESCO World Heritage city. It was converted into a hub for artistic creation, a ground-breaking decision within the Portuguese cultural landscape of the mid-1980s.
Today, Pó carries on that pioneering spirit, and works against the petrification of both ac-tion and culture. Focusing on sustainable artistic practices, hosting artist-in-residence pro-grams, meetings, workshops, exhibitions, performances, concerts.