Alminha: An Ode to Lost Souls

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Please scan the QR and point to the white circle on the pavement on your right before activating the experience.

Synopsis

'Alminha: An Ode to Lost Souls' is an augmented reality installation that reimagines the small shrines found on and along the roadsides of Portugal. These spaces, simultaneously public and intimate, are dedicated to souls in purgatory, lost in transit or suspended between worlds. They are sacred, everyday altars that serve as devotional spaces where the living offer prayers, light candles and leave flowers, characterised as liminal places between life, death and the landscape.

Rooted in Catholic doctrine, they raise questions: what defines a lost soul? Can it be saved or guided? As spaces of domestic devotion, they imply a spiritual "cleansing". Traditionally cared for by women, they involve gestures such as cleaning, placing flowers and lighting candles — similar to cemetery maintenance rituals. This installation inserts a 'digital alminha' into Porto's landscape. More than an object of veneration, 'Alminha: An Ode to Lost Souls' is a digital memento mori, a poetic pause that reflects on loss, migration, displacement and spirituality in contemporary cities. An altar and a tomb for no one in particular, but for everyone. A light lit by the living to guide all those who are navigating in the dark.

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Biography

Maria Constanza Ferreira (1994, Caracas) is a Venezuelan-Portuguese-American artist based in Porto. Her practice combines experimental film, photography, installation and other formats, from which she explores images, objects and narratives that normally remain invisible. She explores art as a means of studying practices and memories, testing the boundaries between science and the occult, and reflecting on how we relate to cultural and material landscapes. Her work proposes new forms of perception, summoning subtle layers of sensory, historical and symbolic experience.

Team

Jack Gray - 3D Artist Gonçalo de Jesus – AR Support

Thanks

Beatriz Costa, Constança Pupo Cardoso, Maria Fátima Martins Oliveira, Sarah Turchin.

How to get there

On Rua de Alexandre Braga, find the the totem stand installed in front of the entrance to the Mercado do Bolhão.