Tiago Santos
PACA Artist In Residence | https://tiago-santos.net/
PACA Garden Residency
2 weeks residency: art and horticulture.
15 > 30/ april/ 2026
Tiago Santos is a Portuguese painter based in The Netherlands. He is coming to PACA by bicycle from Rotterdam.
VERY INSPIRING WORDS from Tiago:
«You asked for my gardening experiences:
I come from Nogueira do Cravo, a small town between Oliveira de Azeméis and São João da Madeira. You might have heard about this region already from Dinis Santos. If you did, you will know that it is quite an industrial environment. My upbringing there, within a family whose life is molded by factory labor, meant that I actually never had a close relationship with nature, with gardening – being embarrassingly ignorant for a long time about simple things, like knowing the seasons of fruits and veggies, or identifying plants. Which is weird, right? You wouldn’t associate that with someone that claims to come from the countryside. In more recent years I started to have more interest in reclaiming that sort of knowledge, almost as if ‘fixing’ that gap in my life story, if you will. Here in Rotterdam I took care of a garden together with peers, during my Master’s degree. It was nice as a group activity, we each had our little hands on different things, experimenting – some wanted to eat veggies they planted, others planted specific plants for their dyeing projects. I particularly liked building structures for plants to climb on (hops, beans, tomatoes), improvising with fallen branches. I ended up painting scenes from this garden, which then really made me think how important these other experiences outside of the studio are for my paintings. Much of the soil in Rotterdam is said to be contaminated due to historical industrialization, so one could think it was a «lost cause» to garden, but nevertheless we did it! And we let it grow wild too.There was a kind of resistance in this activity, which I quite liked. I sense that also happens at PACA, given the surrounding industrial environment, which connects with me not only intellectually but also on a more personal level, and that is really the driving forcefor this residency – I am deeply inspired by your project».
more info about GARDEN RESIDENCIES at PACA: https://pacaproyectosartisticos.com/artistinresidence/garden-residencies/
El jardín de PACA: el huerto de Voltaire con prefacio de Italo Calvino. Utopías activas, arte y horticultura, un’altro tempo, varcare la soglia, utile e diletto. ¿Te ajardinas?