André Braga & Cláudia Figueiredo with Tales Frey and Daniela Cruz
18 June 2026, 6:00pm | Casa das Glicínias, Contumil, Porto [OPENING PROCESS]
18 and 19 December 2026 | Central Elétrica, Porto [PREMIERE]
How many beings am I, to always seek in the other being that inhabits me the realities of contradiction? How many joys and pains has my body, opening like a gigantic cauliflower, offered to the other being hidden within myself? Inside my belly lives a bird; inside my chest, a lion. The lion paces back and forth incessantly. The bird screeches, struggles, and is sacrificed.
The egg still surrounds it like a shroud, yet it is already the beginning of another bird, born immediately after death. There is not even an interval. It is the feast of life and death intertwined.
Lygia Clark
PELE COMUM is a project situated at the intersection of various artistic disciplines, developed by André Braga & Cláudia Figueiredo in co-creation with Tales Frey and Daniela Cruz. It incorporates the participation of an intergenerational community group, formed within each specific context where the work is presented.
The project is built upon a gesture that is both simple and striking: collecting a ton of discarded clothing from trash collection points in the city of Porto and transforming it into aesthetic, political, sensory, and poetic material.
We aim to operate in the space of tension between, on one hand, critiquing and reflecting on the issues surrounding fast fashion and, on the other, evoking a sensory and affective logic capable of fostering new forms of connection. These clothes serve as both an indictment and a record of bodies… They represent excess yet also intimacy… They are refuse, yet also presence. And as we touch this mass, we are moved by something that is simultaneously collective and deeply internal.
How can we ensure that this mountain of clothing is not merely evidence of a collapse, but also a catalyst for sensations that compel us to delve into ourselves and connect with others?
In PELE COMUM, we seek to create an experience where thought is inseparable from touch; where the political is inseparable from the sensory; and where the apocalypse is not merely a backdrop, but a condition felt within the body.
Collective Creation
Artistic direction, concept and dramaturgy: André Braga & Cláudia Figueiredo with Tales Frey
Co-creation and assistant director: Daniela Cruz
Performers: André Braga, Daniela Cruz, Tales Frey and a group of participants
Sound design: João Sarnadas
Venue: André Braga and Tales Frey
Lighting: André Braga and Felipe Silva
Production management: Ana Carvalhosa
Executive production and coordination: Joana Mesquita Alves
Production: Cláudia Santos
Technical coordination: Felipe Silva
Administrative and financial management support: João Gravato
Communication: Joana Borges
ACÚMULOS is a sort of sister project to PELE COMUM; drawing on the language of expanded cinema, it will deepen the investigation into global textile waste flows, using the city of Iquique in northern Chile as a site for observation and reflection.
Through the language of documentary cinema, the project aims to explore the textile dump landscapes of the Atacama Desert, as well as the dynamics surrounding the arrival, commercialization, and transformation of clothing in Iquique.
Combining observation, documentation, and experimentation, ACÚMULOS will take the form of an installation that complements the presentation of PELE COMUM.
Direction, editing, and cinematography: Gonçalo Mota
Production: Joana Mesquita Alves
