The Trás-os-Montes region, meaning “Beyond the Mountains”, is located in north-east Portugal, along the border with Spain (Galicia to the north and León to the east). It is a land of mountains, high plateaux and valleys, home to a multitude of villages.

After Rennes in June and September 2023 and Ploumagouar (Côtes-d'Armor, northern Brittany) in June 2024, Bruz is the third town selected by INTER+VALUE to present to the Breton public the beautiful photographic exhibition entitled TRÁS-OS-MONTES.

Our exhibitions

Point of view

A look at the photos

This series of 40 black-and-white photos was taken in the 1980s by photographer Eduardo Perez in remote villages in the far north of Portugal, echoing Breton villages of yesteryear. It's a collection of striking images, each more beautiful than the last, taking us back to a past that is still recent, yet already vanished. To younger visitors, each photo may take on exotic hues; for older ones, they may be tinged with the sepia tones of nostalgia.

The collection features a rural landscape of austere, old-fashioned granite houses, aged and fragile wooden balustrades, and surprisingly inhabited doors and windows, perfect frames for capturing faces marked by curiosity or the weight of lives long lived. There are also the narrow streets where wandering chickens roam and villagers watch time go by, chatting, driving ancient ox-drawn carts or slaughtering the pig that will sustain them throughout the year. Above all, there are many powerful portraits of children, teenagers and elderly people; as well as attitudes that the photographer's eye has captured in all their singularity; and the magnificent light he managed to seize, elevating a fleeting moment into an unforgettable snapshot.

A harsh and frugal way of life is revealed here to the eyes of visitors. Bucolic melancholy and the hardship etched into the elders’ faces contrast with the cheerful freshness of the children, still present on every street corner in those days.

From past to present

These photographs also serve as a reminder of a specific moment in history: a time when life in these distant rural regions was shaped by poverty and struggle, and when the villages were beginning to empty out. These villages were still home to elderly people and many children – the last sign of a once-high birth rate – but have been deserted by working-age adults, who had left for foreign countries in search of better living conditions or had fled the country to escape a colonial war that the authoritarian regime pursued until 1974.

Today, the villages still exist, but most have lost the bulk of their population. Those who have remained have generally abandoned their old dwellings in favour of housing better suited to modern standards of comfort. The harshness and picturesqueness of the past have often given way to an understandable pragmatism, but unfortunately with little regard for aesthetics or respect for the surrounding nature. Nevertheless, traces of the past remain. Nevertheless, traces of the past endure, and one can still happily visit what remains, in a wonderfully beautiful region that has remained somewhat wild.

Many thanks to Eduardo Perez for forever capturing these beautiful moments that would otherwise have survived only in a few memories.

Manuel de Lima

President of INTER+VALUE