CxHyOz ( CARVÃO)
Direct commission
Ephemeral art installation in public space for BAD Funchal
Funchal, Madeira, Portugal
March 2025
Repurposed aluminium structures, repurposed fabric, pump and coloured water
Prisma : h = 4.5 m, L = 1.5 m
Wall :
h = 4.5 m, L = 7 m
Island : h = 3.5 m, L = 9 m
The marine and the maritime are so close that they sometimes get confused. Both adjectives refer to the sea, but there’s a fundamental difference between them: marine is what is born in the sea, what is natural to the sea, what belongs to the sea’s ecosystem; maritime is what is beside the sea, what has been placed in the sea by human hands, what people do in the sea.
A maritime city is defined by the way it interlinks these two realities. Funchal, a perfect example of what it means to be a maritime city, is the island’s oldest gateway. The Cais do Carvão, once the entry point for materials that fueled the island’s industry and powered its machines, is now set to host an exhibition that will leave no one indifferent.
The installation, designed and built by architects Joana Tomás, Vincent Rault, and José Gustavo Freitas, with the support of Fractal Funchal, proposes a temporary work that seeks to revive the memory of this quay and provoke a new reflection on its legacy. Using the chemical designation of coal and the site’s narrative as an equation of the invisible and the ever-changing, it asks: if the workers once ended up covered in black, what does it mean today to coat ourselves in black in a leisure space in contact with the sea?
Today, cleanliness and hygiene belong to the bodies that work, while dirt belongs to those who play and engage with nature. How can we transform a marginal space like the Cais Carvão using new mediums and diverse geometries? This installation, made from reused elements and materials, unveils a new narrative of the place not through the logic of addition and construction, but through new languages, uses, and the circularity of materials.
