Social Ameba

Underdogs celebrates the 25th of April with the launch of a special series of editions by seven Portuguese artists who, although they did not experience the revolution firsthand, grew up with its legacy deeply embedded in the fabric of society. This year marks 51 years since the Carnation Revolution — a historical moment that ended decades of dictatorship and restored democracy in Portugal. The works emerged from an invitation by Underdogs to engage in a dialogue with iconic photographs by Alfredo Cunha — one of Portugal’s most important photojournalists. With a sharp and sensitive eye, Cunha captured defining moments of April 25, 1974, immortalising expressions of freedom, confrontation, silence, and hope.

Each artist was invited to choose, reflect on, and respond to one of these images, inviting viewers to step into a portal through time and offering a new, personal reading of the past. Originally presented in the exhibition Portais do Tempo, held at the former Lisnave shipyards in Almada in 2023, these powerful works are now being relaunched as limited editions — produced in the same format and with identical margins. Each edition will be sold at the same price, making them accessible to a wider audience and reaffirming the importance of keeping alive the reflection on what freedom means, and what it continues to mean, today.

Inês Teles departs from a historic photograph of Portugal’s transition out of dictatorship — tanks, crowds, and a moment of rupture. Yet her gaze shifts to the margins: a soft light, subtle movement, and the branches of a tree in the foreground. It is from this organic detail that she builds her sculptural response — a poetic glass form inspired by the concept of the Social Amoeba, a unicellular organism that unites for collective survival. Her delicate work reflects on the balance between individual and collective, and the need for resilience in uncertain times.