Portuguese photojournalist Gonçalo Lobo Pinheiro is bringing his latest project, Urban Poetry, to Lisbon with an exhibition opening today at the Malangatana Gallery. The facility is located within the Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada in Lisbon’s historic Alfama district.
Lobo Pinheiro’s showcase features 26 images from his recently published photobook of the same name, which is also being launched in Portugal today. Published last December, just as Macao marked 25 years since its return to Chinese administration, the trilingual photobook features 100 colour photographs that capture daily life in Macao taken over the last five years (during and beyond the Covid-19 pandemic).
In an interview with Macao News prior to the book’s release, Lobo Pinheiro explained that the photographs aim to “convey my sensibility while deeply immersed in what I like to call the intricate web of old Macao.”
[See more: A life in chapters with Macao illustrator Yang Sio Maan]
Lobo Pinheiro described the experience of exhibiting at the Malangatana Gallery as a mix of “nostalgia and celebration.” He explained that “returning to the neighbourhood I was born in, now with a new perspective and new experiences to share, is an immense privilege,” and added that the exhibition allows him to connect his motherland to his current home of Macao, where he has lived for the past 14 years.
The Macao-based Portuguese, who also dabbles with poetry, has been dubbed “a visual poet” by American photojournalist Andrea Star Reese in the preface of the photobook.
Having received multiple distinctions over the span of his two-decade career, Lobo Pinheiro has seen his work featured in several Portuguese and English-language publications (including The Guardian), and showcased in both solo and group exhibitions. He is also one of the founding members of Halftone, the Macao Photographic Association.
