The new artist residency program “Ilhas Revisitadas” (Revisited Islands), directed by Iniciativa, marks the centenary of the publication of the book “As ilhas desconhecidas” (The Unknown Islands), proposing a critical tribute to the works and the islands. Contemporary artists born or residing in the archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira can apply between November 15 and December 15, 2025. The initiative, organized by Arquipélago – Centro de Artes Contemporâneas dos Açores (Contemporary Arts Center of the Azores) in Ribeira Grande, marks the centenary of the publication of As Ilhas Desconhecidas (The Unknown Islands) by Raúl Brandão, offering a critical and poetic tribute to the work and to the Portuguese island territories. This initiative is developed in partnership with the following entities: Agência de Promoção da Cultura Atlântica (APCA), CHAM – Centro de Humanidades, and MUDAS.Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Madeira.

With this program, artists from both archipelagos are invited to present projects that dialogue with the experience of insularity, revisited in the light of contemporary creation. Similar to Brandão’s journey, the residencies promote a symbolic and physical movement between islands: an invitation to “inhabit the other’s island” and to create from the friction between the familiar and the unknown.

The residential experience will result in two final exhibitions, to be held on the island of São Miguel (Azores) and in Madeira, where the projects developed will be presented. These exhibitions aim to open up space for new readings of the archipelagos, revealing attentive gazes on the textures of the territory, the subterranean voices of the landscape, and the stories that have echoed for generations about the sea and the land.”

“Ilhas Revisitadas” is thus a proposal for listening, displacement, and poetic reinterpretation of insularity—an encounter between artists, islands, and times, where Raúl Brandão’s literary past intersects with the creative present of the territories.

In Diário da Lagoa, Clife Botelho, director