Paulo Canilhas: Das Pedras Que Crescemos

For the first time, the Acervo Santa Maria Maior invites an artist to work from its collection—not to comment or reorganize, but to bring it into contact with another material, rhythm, and way of seeing. Paulo Canilhas presents a body of work that extends his investigation begun in *A Arquitectura de uma Flor*, shifting from architectural fragments where vegetation insinuated itself to stone, sediment, and the slow forms of the mineral world.

For this exhibition, Canilhas selected a photograph by Orlando Azevedo from the Acervo's reserves, opening a dialogue that does not seek to resolve differences but to make them visible. *Das pedras que crescemos* proposes thinking of the Acervo as a living place, where each new approach transforms what we already know—a collection lives not only by what it conserves but by the relationships it continues to make possible.