lisboãk

FbAUl.ptsemester 2012/13 edited by krisztina bogo

12

/13

lisboA.lisbon. Moving AroUnd. looking throUgh. listening into. leArning FroM.Using the city.

ã

lisboA.lisbon.

˜no high heels.

˜WhAt color is WAshed todAy?

˜FAdo.sAUdAde.

˜light.WAter.

˜˜

lisboA lisbon.

Lisbon seemed to be a nice city full of life and action. That’s why i chose to be here for erasmus, and “I won Lis-bon” for 5 months. By study-ing abroad I had many experi-ences about the the place, the people, Portugal, discover-ing around more and less.

how did the lisbon story start?

After some time you get to know your way, places, food, how things work. I still won-der how is it possible that I can still see different pat-terned azulejos - this color-ful patterned tiles? The az-ulejos are all around, it does not depend on the dis-trict or the social context./

Lisbon is full of beauti-ful gardens and some little animals, mostly birds. They keep special gardens, beside churches, museums, but also smaller ones in the city. The best was Gulbenkian Founda-tion’s garden, which is per-fect for sunday picnics after the free entry museum day. I’m sure that there, everyboy will find their own place in the nicely constructed garden.The best thing in this pub-

to shoot plants and animal

lic gardens, is that any-time, anyboby can enjoy a bit of rest for a while.One of the gardens I know has a little lake in the mid-dle and roosters, gooses, ducks and peacocks are free to walk. The poultries are fed by little girls and nice gran-nies. The other specialty is that the rooster is the Por-tugal’s national animal. It is based on a thousand years old legend. It symbolises “The winning of justice when you fight for it”. The story goes, as I know it, like this:A young man was sentenced to be hanged for a crime he didn’t commit. In this case, there was not enough doubt to do the accused any good.

Every tuesday and saturday you can find treasures. On these days are organized a big flea market around the old part of the city. The feira da ladra - the thieves’ market. Actu-ally, the ‘thieves women’s‘, because in portugese ‘ladra‘, thieves is feminine. The market in itself is colourful and di-verse. Like a real flea market you can find nearly everything. From the hundreds yers old to the brand-new items. Whathever they just find, they try to sell it on this market - with success. While walking in the city, i feel the market around me sometimes. There are always many things on the streets, normally beside big dustbins, but not always. That’s how I found a slightly broken, but really nice child guitar. I cannot repair it to play on it unfortunately, but it was nice to have it as decoration in my new bedroom. These lit-tle things which I found had a new life in my hands. The flea market offer many other new lives to those forgotten ones.

feira de ladra

City of nearby travellers. Portugese are famous for their explorations history. They travelled around the World. The capital city shows this too, being a mirror of thousands of colors. This appears in the architecture, the athmosphere around. Inspired by the dis-covered lands they have seen, they brought various styles to the locals. The diversity is not at all confusing, and sometimes it’s just subtile, and offered to the eyes which can discover it. The city has different characteristic areas - barrio. Each of them has its own history and reason to be.The oriental and arabic style are the most determinative. The most beautiful was for me the Jeronimos Monastery building.

city explorers

When you walk around the small streets and you got enough lost for a while, take a train, or bus by the river and go a bit out of the center. Walking in the barrio Belém is one of the parts I would most recom-mend. This district is famous for its richness, and actu-ally seems a totally different world compared to the center of Lisbon. Here are a lot to see: parks, buildings, museums. The modern art museum CCB is also here. Its modern building is teasing and fooling the old historical buildings around.The old ones are protected by the Torre de Belém. They are nice and desersve the respect.

out of the center

no high heels.

I was falling in love in the summer with a pair of shoes which i would never wear before. They were per-fect, for the autumn, for a woman living in a big city. I was right not to buy them before going to Lisbon.

not to buy them before lisbon

This city is not friendly to “high heelers”. The streets are spread all over the city, full of cobbles. The pave-ments and sometimes roads, even squares are covered with some nice amorph shaped little rocks. They create a nostalgic atmosphere around. These old mediterranean pavements may have seen enough ages, that they have a chance to learn how to trick the people walk-ing by. Being a pedestrian can be ok, but not in the rain, or carrying a heavy luggage, that you may have thought, would be easier to roll on the ground. If you just ar-rive, take the bus or the taxi, because it can save you many trouble. If you are just alone

in the city, take a big walk around and get lost! I have discovered the nicest parts of this town because I missed a turn. Don’t think that in Lisbon, “All roads lead to Rome”. Each street is going on its independent arbitary way. The roads are crossing each other in a totally dif-ferent way, and sometimes you can walk through half a dis-trict to get to the other side. Be careful where you step.

don’t think that in lisbon “all roads lead to rome”. each street is going on its independent arbitary way.

/

Lisbon has not especially a lot of high buildings, but all of them nearly have an excel-lent view. Sometimes you can really go on the roof - if it’s safe enough and allowed too. I’m sure you will be amazed by the city under your feet, looking over the Tejo river as long as you can. This spacious feeling can be experienced in the new districts of Lisbon. The squares made me feel like in a big open space in the city, countervail the lit-tle streets and the impossible narrow alleys. The Budapest metro feels like dark and the ceiling is low whereas the Lisbon one feels spacious and nicely built, or renovated.

fly away on the top

WhAt color is WAshed todAy?

People living here have thou-sands of hours of sunshine dur-ing almost the whole year, and they use this chance wisely. I saw it before in other mediter-ranean places, but in Lisbon it made me wonder. Looking up in all over the city you can see the colorful dressed up houses in fresh clothes. It

always seems to me so nice, because you can see what color is washed today. This is a big diference between my hometown, Budapest and Lisbon. This made me think a lot about it, and inspired me to make a project about it. I started with tak-ing photos of the hanged out laundry and collecting the

hanging around the city

them. Is it normal that I can see somebody’s underwear on the street? It is. Here. In this situation. I was curi-ous if I can get to know the people through their clothes. You know the saying ‘clothes do not make the man‘, but isn’t us to decide what to wear? What style, color? People personali-ties are hanging around like clothes and here for us to look through their lives. It seems they live more closer to each other, and opened to each other, but giving space to each other in order to live togeth-er. So they don’t pay this much attention to this, like I do.

People are hiding their inti-mate life behind the walls, keeping things inside the house. To see other’s clothes are not a big thing. You can see them when they are weared. But this kind off hanging show-es something more of the per-son. How they are putted out, where, how much, and especially what. Normally they have some ropes under the windows, than its easy to reach. There are some strange cases, when their is no other place to put, like a ground floor flat in a small alley. The clothes are hanged there really to the street, I could go there and take one. Of course I won’t do it. This means a trust in other people or just problems must be solved and tha’s the way?

FAdo. sAUdAde.Without knowing fado we can-not understand portugese people and mentality. This music genre is a kind of symbol. Usu-ally they perform in a group of three: a singer, can be a man or a woman, two differ-ent guitarists, one with a mandolin and one with a por-tugese guitar.The lyrics are often describing the sea or the life of the poor, and are infused with a characteris-tic sentiment of resignation, fatefulness and melancholia. This music is usually linked to the portuguese word ‘saudade’ which symbolizes the feeling of loss (a permanent, ir-reparable loss and its conse-quent life lasting damage).Listening to live a fado singer

is a kind of holy time. Eve-rything and everybody is in silent and you can feel in the air a kind of euphoria. They do it in restaurants. But once, by chance, I was lucky to be in a messe which was colored with fado songs for Saint Martin’s day. Surprisingly it was more a natural and community feel-ing than the ‘lights off and silence‘ in the resraurant.

chUvA

As coisas vulgares que há na vidaNão deixam saudadesSó as lembranças que doemOu fazem sorrirHá gente que fica na históriana historia da gentee outras de quem nem o nomelembramos ouvirSão emoções que dão vidaA saudade que tragoAquelas que tive contigoe acabei por perderHá dias quemarcam a alma e a vida da gentee aquele em que tu me deixaste não posso esquecerA chuva molhava-me o rostoGelado e cansadoAs ruas que a cidade tinhaJá eu percorreraAi... meu choro de moça per-didagritava à cidadeque o fogo do amorsob chuvahá instantes morreraA chuva ouviu e caloumeu segredo à cidadeE eis que ela bate no vidroTrazendo a saudade

rAin

the common things in lifearen't missedonly the memories that make us hurtor those which make us smilethere are people who stay in storyin our (life) storyand others who's namewe don't even remember to have heardthese are the emotions that bring lifethe "saudade" that I carry with methose (emotions) that I had with youand that by the end I've lostThere are daysthat seal our soul and lifeand the one that you've left meI can’t forgetThe rain wet my face

(that was) frozen and tiredthe streets of the cityI've already crossedai... my cry of lost young girlscreamed to the citythat the fire of loveunder the rainhad just diedthe rain heard and kept silence(about) my secret to the cityand then it knocks on the win-dowbringing "saudade"

“Estou só e sonho saudade.E como é branca de graçaA paisagem que não sei, Vista de trás da vidraçaDo lar que nunca terei!”

“I’m just dreaming and longing. And how white grace the landscape that do not know, View behind the pane From home I’ll never have!”

Fernando Pessoa

saudae

light.WAter.

Without light and water there is no life. Lisbon definately can be described for me with this two elements. ‘Luz‘ the light and ‘agua‘ the water. The sunset is filling the air with smiles, drying the clothes and giving energy to do your day. Water is not everytime nice to me. The river Tejo is wonderful, and to see the water every day is so nice, even if its just from far away. The rain frightens away the sun-rise and made me long lonely days. I have not even real-ized before that I need this much sunshine per day. The rain is normal in the autumn. The weather is changing fast and sometimes really unpredictable.

the rain frightens the sun away

It is true that I was plenty of summers at the seaside, but the ocean is different. Not just the sight, but you can feel it in the wind and on your skin! The ocean’s tem-perature is much cooler than I thought, and the waves are so strong that they can bring you in or out of the water.

the big water

photos by krisztina bogo and jèrôme li-thiao te thanks to sofia leal rodrigues, aliz buzas and jèrôme li-thiao te

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