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A CASA DAS GALINHAS
Chapter Zero, 2026--:
A land art project about memory, family and the quiet archaeology of everyday life.
How should a sculpture park begin?
Not with a sculpture.
But with a listening.
But with a listening.
BEFORE THE BIG IDEA
For several years I have dreamed of creating a sculpture park.
I always imagined it would begin with an artwork.
Instead, it began with a question.
How should a sculpture park begin?
I always imagined it would begin with an artwork.
Instead, it began with a question.
How should a sculpture park begin?
After marrying into a Portuguese family, I found myself spending more and more time in northern Portugal.
Not the Portugal of postcards.
But the Portugal where my husband’s parents, brothers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and neighbors have lived for generations.
This project began while learning to understand that landscape.
Not the Portugal of postcards.
But the Portugal where my husband’s parents, brothers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and neighbors have lived for generations.
This project began while learning to understand that landscape.
A DIFFERENT WAY OF LIVING
- Today we live in Dubai.
Like many people there, we live between countries, languages and cultures.
Perhaps because of that, places with deep roots have become even more meaningful to us. - Returning to northern Portugal reminds us that identity is not only something we carry inside ourselves.
It also lives in landscapes.
In gardens.
In family rituals.
In the objects that quietly survive from one generation to the next.
Today we live in Dubai.
Like many people there, we live between countries, languages and cultures.
Perhaps because of that, places with deep roots have become even more meaningful to us.
Returning to northern Portugal reminds us that identity is not only something we carry inside ourselves.
It also lives in landscapes.
In gardens.
In family rituals.
In the objects that quietly survive from one generation to the next.
Like many people there, we live between countries, languages and cultures.
Perhaps because of that, places with deep roots have become even more meaningful to us.
Returning to northern Portugal reminds us that identity is not only something we carry inside ourselves.
It also lives in landscapes.
In gardens.
In family rituals.
In the objects that quietly survive from one generation to the next.
This project is not about nostalgia.
It is about understanding how places shape who we are.
What fascinated me most was not a single object, but an entire way of living.
Here, houses seem to grow from the hills instead of dominating them.
Old and contemporary architecture coexist naturally.
Gardens are cultivated with care.
Fruit trees are planted for future generations.
Everyday life itself becomes a form of culture.
Not museum culture.
Living culture.
Gardens are cultivated with care.
Fruit trees are planted for future generations.
Everyday life itself becomes a form of culture.
Not museum culture.
Living culture.
This project unfolds across two neighboring family properties.
The first belonged to my husband's grandparents.
Today it is home to chickens, fruit trees and vegetable gardens.
It is not designed to be beautiful.
It was built to support everyday life.
And perhaps that is exactly what makes it beautiful.
The second property is where my husband's parents have lived for several decades.
This year we began clearing the garden, the laundry room and several storage spaces.
That was the moment the project truly began.
Today it is home to chickens, fruit trees and vegetable gardens.
It is not designed to be beautiful.
It was built to support everyday life.
And perhaps that is exactly what makes it beautiful.
The second property is where my husband's parents have lived for several decades.
This year we began clearing the garden, the laundry room and several storage spaces.
That was the moment the project truly began.
WHAT THE LAND REMEMBERS:
THE FINDINGS
THE FINDINGS
Broken roof tiles.
Ceramic fragments.
Old cooking pots.
Glass bottles.
Metal tools.
Granite stones.
Pieces of everyday life.
None of them belong in a museum.
None are valuable on their own.
Yet together they form an archive of ordinary existence.
Many survived not because they were precious, but because nobody ever felt the need to throw them away.
That became the starting point of this work.
Ceramic fragments.
Old cooking pots.
Glass bottles.
Metal tools.
Granite stones.
Pieces of everyday life.
None of them belong in a museum.
None are valuable on their own.
Yet together they form an archive of ordinary existence.
Many survived not because they were precious, but because nobody ever felt the need to throw them away.
That became the starting point of this work.
THE CHICKEN YARD
One of the most important places in this project is also the most ordinary.
The old chicken yard.
It is still alive.
Chickens wander between stones, roof tiles, forgotten tools and traces of many decades of daily life.
Nothing here was composed as art.
Everything accumulated naturally through living.
For me, this place became an unexpected archive.
It reminds us that culture does not only exist in museums.
Sometimes it exists in the way people build a chicken house, repair a fence, grow vegetables or keep objects whose value lies only in the memories they carry.
The old chicken yard.
It is still alive.
Chickens wander between stones, roof tiles, forgotten tools and traces of many decades of daily life.
Nothing here was composed as art.
Everything accumulated naturally through living.
For me, this place became an unexpected archive.
It reminds us that culture does not only exist in museums.
Sometimes it exists in the way people build a chicken house, repair a fence, grow vegetables or keep objects whose value lies only in the memories they carry.
| CHAPTER ZERO This is not yet a sculpture. It is Chapter Zero. The first page of a much longer story. Perhaps one day this place will become a sculpture park. Perhaps artists will be invited to create works here. Perhaps these fragments will become part of the first sculpture. Whatever happens next, It will begin here — with one piece of land, with chickens, with a broken roof tile, with a ceramic bowl, and with the decision to understand a place before trying to change it. |
AN ARCHIVE BEFORE A SCULPTURE
Nothing has been transformed.
Nothing has been glued together.
Nothing has become a sculpture.
Nothing has been glued together.
Nothing has become a sculpture.
The objects have only been collected, cleaned and placed together.
This temporary archive is already part of the artwork.
Observation comes before intervention.
Listening comes before creating.
This temporary archive is already part of the artwork.
Observation comes before intervention.
Listening comes before creating.
- LAND ARTLand Art treats the landscape itself as part of the artwork.
Instead of placing an object onto the land, the land becomes the medium.
This project follows the same principle.
Nothing has been imported.
Everything comes from these two family properties.
The work grows from the place instead of being placed upon it.
WORKING PRINCIPLES
We observe before we intervene.
We do not import meaning.
We discover it.
We discover it.
We treat everyday objects as cultural memory.
We work with the land, not against it.
Every intervention should deepen the conversation with the place.
Not interrupt it.
Not interrupt it.
We leave room for the unexpected.
ABOUT
Ksenia Rodrigues is an art mediator, business coach and researcher exploring how people create meaning through art, psychology and culture.
A Casa das Galinhas is a Chapter Zero of a future sculpture park -- ongoing long-term research project in northern Portugal.
I am based in Dubai, where my everyday life is structured, comfortable and well organised — a place where I build my present, and from which the summer heat inevitably sends us elsewhere for a while.
Moscow is my hometown. I was born there, my Russian family lives there, and it is the city where I spent last almost fifteen years running a contemporary art gallery. It is my native language, old friendships, family, work, culture — and a certain intensity of life that I still love. I return to it, immerse myself in its energy, and, quite soon, find myself longing to slow down again.
Portugal has become another kind of home. It is my Portuguese family, long meals, extraordinary food, nature, travelling and a certain permission to enjoy life — perhaps even a form of everyday hedonism.
Moving between these places, I have become interested in how geography and culture shape not only the way we live, but the different ways we become ourselves.
I am interested in what we carry from one place into another: habits, values, memories, rhythms, objects and ways of seeing. And perhaps in how, eventually, these seemingly different lives become one.
My ongoing research explores this through art, psychology, culture and everyday life.
A Casa das Galinhas is a Chapter Zero of a future sculpture park -- ongoing long-term research project in northern Portugal.
I am based in Dubai, where my everyday life is structured, comfortable and well organised — a place where I build my present, and from which the summer heat inevitably sends us elsewhere for a while.
Moscow is my hometown. I was born there, my Russian family lives there, and it is the city where I spent last almost fifteen years running a contemporary art gallery. It is my native language, old friendships, family, work, culture — and a certain intensity of life that I still love. I return to it, immerse myself in its energy, and, quite soon, find myself longing to slow down again.
Portugal has become another kind of home. It is my Portuguese family, long meals, extraordinary food, nature, travelling and a certain permission to enjoy life — perhaps even a form of everyday hedonism.
Moving between these places, I have become interested in how geography and culture shape not only the way we live, but the different ways we become ourselves.
I am interested in what we carry from one place into another: habits, values, memories, rhythms, objects and ways of seeing. And perhaps in how, eventually, these seemingly different lives become one.
My ongoing research explores this through art, psychology, culture and everyday life.
ABOUT
Ksenia Rodrigues is an art mediator, business coach and researcher exploring how people create meaning through art, psychology and culture.
What the Land Remembered is an ongoing long-term research project in northern Portugal.
What the Land Remembered is an ongoing long-term research project in northern Portugal.
PROJECT STAGES