visual essay for QUINTA DOS LOIVOS

year 2025-2026

In 2025, we were invited by Quinta dos Loivos to develop a long-term project documenting the estate and its surrounding territory in the Douro, working across photography, video, and sound. Since then, we have been following the work carried out in the vineyards and fields throughout the year — from cultivation to harvest — observing the cycles that shape both the landscape and those who inhabit it.

Our approach is grounded in the territory itself: the structure of the land, the diversity of crops, the shifting conditions across seasons, and the daily practices that sustain them. We also remain attentive to the life of the nearby village of Casal de Loivos — its rhythms and local traditions.

The Douro offers a complex and layered ground for exploring identity and narrative, particularly in relation to land and labor, resisting simplification or romanticisation. Rather than constructing an idealised image, this project engages with the Douro as it is — shaped by time, work, knowledge, tools, and climate — building a body of work rooted in that reality.