Through a partnership with the Portuguese Center for Screen Printing, “Matriz Atlântica” will combine exhibitions, artistic residencies in Lisbon, cultural education and public debate—while seeking something especially important for island artists: pathways for Azorean creation to travel beyond the archipelago

An island can be a place of creation without becoming a place of confinement. That distinction lies at the heart of Matriz Atlântica, the new contemporary visual arts project being launched by the Coliseu Micaelense on September 10. Conceived through a partnership established in January 2026 with the Centro Português de Serigrafia (CPS), the initiative proposes something more ambitious than a succession of exhibitions in Ponta Delgada. It seeks to create circulation: between artists and institutions, between the Azores and Lisbon, between artistic production and younger audiences, and ultimately between Azorean creativity and a wider national and international cultural landscape.

The project will extend throughout 2027, for approximately twelve months, combining temporary exhibitions in the Coliseu’s Salão Nobre, artistic residencies, educational programming and opportunities for reflection and debate. Particularly significant will be the residencies at the CPS studios in Lisbon, where selected artists will have the opportunity to work within a specialized professional environment.

The philosophy behind that decision reverses a familiar cultural equation. For island regions, cultural policy is frequently described in terms of what can be brought to the islands. Matriz Atlântica asks another question: what can the islands send outward?

“More than bringing artists to the Azores, we want the opposite movement,” the Coliseu explains. “We want Azorean creation to leave, circulate and gain visibility nationally and internationally.”

The Coliseu Beyond the Stage

The project also represents an evolution in the cultural identity of the Coliseu Micaelense itself. Traditionally associated above all with performance, the institution has been part of the Portuguese Theaters and Cinemas Network since 2021, and from 2025 began exploring more deliberately the possibilities that membership offered.

That process encouraged the Coliseu to imagine itself beyond a conventional schedule of performances. Opening the building more fully during daytime hours and transforming the Salão Nobre into an exhibition space became part of a broader effort to expand the institution’s cultural function.

The project is made possible, according to the Coliseu, by the support of its shareholder, the Municipality of Ponta Delgada, and by the program contract maintained with the municipality since 2023. That arrangement has provided greater stability for programming and for the team responsible for sustaining the institution’s activity.

The underlying principle is important: a major cultural institution possesses not merely the capacity to receive art but also the responsibility to project it. In an archipelago, where geography can limit professional networks and visibility, institutional prestige can become a bridge through which artists reach audiences otherwise difficult to access.

Exhibit, Create, Teach—and Send Outward

Matriz Atlântica has consequently been designed around several interconnected verbs: to exhibit, create, train, debate, mediate and project.

Exhibitions will remain accessible for extended periods. Residencies will provide artists with professional creative opportunities in Lisbon. Through its Educational Service, the Coliseu intends to organize workshops and activities for children, young people and families, treating audience development not as an afterthought but as part of the cultural project itself.

This educational dimension may prove especially consequential. Cultural ecosystems are not sustained only by producing artists; they also depend upon creating audiences capable of curiosity, interpretation and engagement. Introducing contemporary visual art to younger generations can therefore be understood as an investment whose results may not become visible for years.

The Coliseu has already experimented with expanding the life of cultural events beyond their immediate presentation. The institution cites the example of Ney Matogrosso, whose visit generated the series Ney nos Açores, allowing a project developed from the Coliseu to reach audiences far beyond the archipelago.

Matriz Atlântica seeks to apply a similar philosophy to the visual arts: the islands as a place where cultural projects can originate rather than merely terminate.

Who Pays for Culture?

The September 10 launch will also confront a question that accompanies nearly every serious cultural ambition: how should culture be financed?

The conference “Mecenato e Arte Contemporânea” — “Patronage and Contemporary Art” will bring together cultural, institutional, business and political voices to discuss funding models for the arts in the Azores.

The timing, according to the Coliseu, is particularly relevant because Portugal has a new national framework for cultural patronage while the Azores do not have specific regional legislation in this area. The institution sees an opportunity to consider whether solutions can be developed that respond more directly to the Region’s particular economic, social and cultural circumstances.

The discussion will include representatives from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, “la Caixa” Foundation and Casa de Mateus Foundation, together with prominent private collectors and a panel addressing the legal, fiscal and financial dimensions of cultural support. Portugal’s Secretary of State for Culture is also confirmed to participate. Attendance will be free, subject to prior registration.

Public Support and Shared Responsibility

The Coliseu is careful to make an important distinction: private patronage is not being proposed as a replacement for public cultural investment. In its own case, municipal support remains fundamental to the institution’s structure and programming.

Instead, patronage is presented as a complementary instrument capable of making additional projects possible.

This is especially relevant in an outermost island region, where producing culture carries costs that continental institutions may not face at the same scale. Bringing artists, companies, exhibitions and specialized equipment across the Atlantic means transportation, accommodation and logistical expenses that can make ambitious programming considerably more difficult.

The proposed answer is therefore not withdrawal of the public sector but shared cultural responsibility—government providing a foundation while companies, foundations, collectors and individuals help enlarge what can be accomplished upon it.

The Coliseu identifies three necessities for strengthening that culture of patronage in the Azores: dialogue, communication and access. Those who create cultural projects must be brought closer to those capable of supporting them, while the mechanisms through which businesses, foundations and individuals can participate must become easier to understand.

Making the Atlantic a Passage, Not a Barrier

There is something particularly appropriate in the name Matriz Atlântica. A matrix is a place from which something originates, develops and multiplies. The Atlantic, meanwhile, has always been both the Azores’ great geographical separation and their great corridor toward the world.

The challenge for contemporary Azorean culture is to make that ocean increasingly the latter.

For generations, island artists have confronted a structural contradiction: they can create work deeply informed by one of Europe’s most distinctive geographical and cultural environments while remaining distant from many of the institutions, galleries, publishers, collectors and professional networks through which artistic careers acquire broader visibility.

Matriz Atlântica cannot eliminate that distance. But residencies, institutional partnerships, exhibitions, educational work and national networks can make distance more permeable.

And perhaps that is where the project becomes more interesting than another cultural program on a calendar. Its success will not ultimately be measured only by how many people enter the Salão Nobre to see an exhibition. It will also be measured by what leaves it: artists with new opportunities, work entering new circuits, children discovering another artistic language, partnerships that continue after 2027 and Azorean creativity becoming more visible beyond the horizon.

For islands, the most important cultural bridge is not always the one that brings the world to their shores. Sometimes it is the one that allows what was imagined on the islands to cross the sea. Matriz Atlântica begins with precisely that promise: not to make the Azores less insular, but to ensure that insularity never becomes a boundary for creation.

Based on an interview published in Diário Insular-José Lourenço-director. Photos from DI.