The Murals of Riachos

The ethnographic evocation murals of the village of Riachos, municipality of Torres Novas, began in 2012, as part of the Festa da Benção do Gado, a religious and ethnographic event that constitutes a fundamental reference for the locals. In that year, in an attempt to innovate in the cobbling of the streets and seeking a mark that was strongly identitary, the Núcleo de Artes de Riachos, in collaboration with the Bênção do Gado Associação Cultural, took the initiative of creating murals whose iconography was based above all in agricultural traditions and in local uses and customs. These paintings constitute an addition, with a more lasting and coordinated character, to the type of mobile decorations that many residents already made in front of their houses on the occasion of the Festival, also with the recreation of scenes of an ethnographic character or, simply, with recourse to objects and implements evoking this rural past that was intended to be reinforced. In the following edition of the festival, in 2016, this practice was further developed, with new murals being painted and existing ones being restored or repainted, and there are currently around six dozen murals in the streets of the town. Painted by members of the community, these paintings have become a visual repertoire of memories and traditions and are a catalyst of local identity in public space.

Never having been the object of study, the murals of Riachos form an important resource for the strengthening of social relations within the community, for increasing the sense of belonging to the place, for establishing processes of dialogue and local consensus, and for the creation of a collective community memory. On the other hand, the tourist and cultural promotion of the region has benefited from this initiative of the local community.