the street is our gallery

The Portuguese artists have painted two 137,5m2 murals with social awareness messages. Mr. Dheo, with the collaboration of the artist Pariz One, has performed an art intervention in the two facades (of 137,5m2 each) of the student residence Livensa Living Porto Campus (Porto, Portugal) of Temprano Capital Partners. The mural, done with spray technique, aims to trigger awareness towards two social problems: racism and xenophobia.

Mr. Dheo and Pariz One have painted the façade of the building with a realist mural that transmits the need of respecting others and promotes equality from a social perspective. Through the incorporation of symbolic elements such as a world map or two hands forming a heart, the artists have unified races, ages and cultures.

The project has been co-curated by Sónia da Rocha, director of Public Art Programme and manager of Sonae Sierra’s Shopping Centres and the person who has selected the artists, and the architect José Quintela da Fonseca, who has designed the student residence Livensa Living Porto Campus. “Including public art in student residences allows buildings to establish a direct communication with the public, making a difference to its anonymous surroundings and having the opportunity to be remembered”, highlights Quintela da Fonseca.

On the other hand, Da Rocha points out the particularity of the project since the area of Asprela in Oporto is a very different territory in comparison to the city, far away from tourists and mainly inhabited by local families and thousands of students from all over the world:

“It is a great opportunity for its inhabitants to have a public artwork of this beauty and category”.
With this intervention in Asprela (Oporto), the artists not only promote a better self-awareness of key values for the functioning of our civilization, but they also show the ability of urban art to act as a social catalyst in the public space.

“Mr. Dheo and Pariz One’s work in Asprela is an amazing contribution and reflection for our society, as it talks about tolerance between different cultures and societies. Nowadays the world needs peace and people living in harmony”, adds Da Rocha.

TEMPRANO CAPITAL PARTNERS
Temprano Capital Partners was founded in 2013 and it is the first private investment and real estate development company that works in the students’ housing and designs buildings that include mural artworks enhancing the presence of urban art in different cities.

The student residence Livensa Living Barcelona Diagonal Alto is included within the portfolio of 11 students’ housing finished or still in development that Temprano has in Spain and Portugal. In all of them, designed by the architect José Quintela da Fonseca, Temprano considers artistic projects of this kind. In 2018, Temprano launched a first project in its student residence TSL Marquês de Pombal in Lisbon with the Portuguese artist Mr. Dheo.