42-A + 42-B [PADA] was produced during the International Residency at PADA Studios in January 2026.
Rafael Raposo Pires was granted the PADA Bursary to take part in PADA 55.

At PADA Rafael Raposo Pires was interested in reacting to the grid layout of the surrounding streets. Creating works that deal with the notion of changing direction, observing how corner materials shape imposition, or how intersections can be places of revelation.

Over Crest showcases a selection of photographs that depict elements of passage, obstruction, control, movement or recurrence.
Rafael Raposo Pires has created this works during daily walking dérives throughout his residency period in Budapest. Walking mostly within a landscape that is in the limbo towards transformation, from industrial to residential, he opts to observe details that relate to mobility, access or even leisure.
The artistic residency has the support of Câmara Municipal de Lisboa (LAAR), in partnership with the Budapest Gallery.

The exhibition Over Crest showcases a selection of the work and took place at the Budapest Gallery in Budapest, Hungary, in June 2025.

wanderings displays photographs produced throughout 2024 in Sevan, Yerevan, Düsseldorf, Berlin, Elefsina, Athens, Øresund, Madeira.
It is the first publication edited by estúdio Atilho in Lisbon, with design by Mariana Ferreira.
44 pages, 15×21 cm, January 2025.

The city of Elefsina is home to the archeological site of Telesterion, an ancient Greek temple know for the Eleusinian Mysteries and one of the most sacred places in the region. Today the city has become a suburb of Athens, and due to the aggressive industrialisation during the XXI century many of its ancient remais were crushed to produce cement.
Elefsinian Wanderings (2024) showcases remais of ancient construction materials, juxtaposed with the materiality existing in the city’s streets nowadays. It is the result of walks between the city’s archeological area and surrounding industrial sites, guided by over-patterned concrete pathways, colourful marks and objects that propose to us a new memory from the past.

This project was developed during the Project SEEDS Art Residency (2023-24), a selection of photographs were part of the Urban Museum of Elefsina (2024) exhibition in Greece.

Erecting from the ground is an installation created during the Project SEEDS Art Residency (2023-24) at Oficinas do Convento in Montemor-o-Novo, Portugal. It is part of a larger set of artworks seeking to discuss issues of block or containment, permeability or dispersion, using materials collected around the artistic residency sites. Here, the use of earth as an aggregating material in juxtaposition to iron in the broken welds of a mesh, in an ephemeral attempt at repair.

This piece was selected for the Portuguese Emerging Art 2024 publication.

Encobrimento (Concealment) addresses themes of power and disguise, related to the transformation of places of periodic use and people’s desires. The project is focused on several coastal areas where the pressure created by a constant update of social preferences puts local activities, that have extended over time, at risk.

Spaces used for fairs and markets are visible, demarcated by differences in flooring or wear and tear. Details associated with places of worship that are partially covered. Vegetation is scarce or contained. The trail of the transformation of the landscape is left in plain sight, with access to the coastal area becoming increasingly distant.

The continuation of this project will be done through the publication of an author’s photobook.

Parcelas depicts land management and its transformation. It shows a landscape divided into plots through the construction of walls. The allotment’s state of abandonment, or rather its rest, is visible, giving space for vegetation to grow again. A construction that seems to be born a ruin, a ruin that multiplies.