It all began in 2009, when during a creative process, myself and a team of artists occupied one of the rooms adjacent to the old weaving hall (today the space that houses the Interpretive Center). At the time, the nave of the old Santo Thyrso Factory was a nostalgic ruin of bygone times. Wandering through the immensity of that empty space, where one could hear the sound of their own footsteps, the silence filled with names, echoes, stories, and mute places. Quite naturally, some episodes from that past were shared by former workers and other voices. The desire to return remained. Thus began the gestation of this project that starts from this factory, is about this factory, with the people of the factory, and for everyone here and now, as is done in theater.

A set of subtle impressions that were born from listening to this place hibernated in a kind of silent archive, stored in the shadows, until one day I decided to look at them in the light of day. I gathered a group of collaborators and we began the work. We spoke with former factory workers. We looked at objects, photographs, scoured archives, touched emotions, kept secrets. Gradually, loose ends of the delicate threads of memory began to weave a common web. Memories that intersect, names that repeat, voices that complete each other.

We invited people from the community to join a creative collective, and with them, we built memory of flesh and bone. In the Factory is to return to this place to listen to it in voice and body. It is to inhabit the factory. It is to be In the Factory.

For more information, visit: www.nafabrica.pt