Orgulho bairrista

Orgulho bairrista is a project by photographer Andy Dyo and anthropologist Iñigo Sánchez-Fuarros in collaboration with the Marcha da Mouraria and the Grupo Desportivo da Mouraria.

By focusing on the capacity of Lisbon’s marchas populares to mobilize emotions linked to a strong sense of belonging, this project explores how the participants in the Marcha da Mouraria enact their pride to represent their neighbourhood in the competition of the marchas populares that takes place on the eve of Saint Anthony’s Day. 

This feeling of pride is explored in two complementary ways. Firstly, as a collective emotion that is produced and experienced through the participation and involvement in the marcha. Secondly, we understand pride as an expressive form of individuality. Rather than blurring these individual feelings of dignity and nobility, the real and symbolic space of the marcha provides a collective framework of action that encourages its expression. 

The portraits that conform the exhibition were taken in two moments: in the studio, where the marchantes posed stripped naked, with no accessories other than the tattoos that cover the body of some of them; and in the day of the parade, all dressed in costumes, minutes before they marched through the neighbourhood on their way to the competition. 

Orgulho bairrista includes a short audiovisual essay and a printed catalogue. Both in the portraits and the life histories of these young men and women, they pose proud of being from and representing Mouraria, giving continuity to a tradition that has passed from generation to generation and whose future is uncertain under the current socio-demographic transformations that the neighbourhood is experiencing. 

Link to the project’s website.

Link to the exhibition catalogue.


Concept: Iñigo Sánchez Fuarros and Andy Dyo 

Photography: Andy Dyo | Texts and video: Iñigo Sánchez Fuarros

Participants: Fernanda Neves, Cátia Pereira, André Sousa, Cátia Nunes, Vítor Hugo Sousa, Suse João, Nelson Filipe Alves, Paulo Condeço, Tiago dos Santos, Gil Mendes, Patrícia Braz, Pedro Oliveira, Sofia Ferreira, André Pinto, Jéssica Duarte, Tânia Correia e Andreia Fernandes. 

Partners: Grupo Desportivo da Mouraria and Junta de Freguesia de Santa Maria Maior

Support: Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) under a SR&TD Project Grant (PTDC/ART-PER/32417/2017, NOVA FCSH, INET-md