Gabion Wall

This installation reimagines the wall as a connective element rather than a device of separation. Positioned in a public square at a point that is both a zone of movement and a threshold – directly in front of a pedestrian crossing, where the flows of vehicles and people intersect – the wall engages with the idea of frontier without reinforcing it. Instead of demarcating boundaries or obstructing movement, as walls often do, the installation is placed transversely, functioning as a gate. Divided into two parts, it invites people to pass through rather than be stopped.

Constructed as a gabion wall, the installation consists of hexagonal wire mesh filled with stones, forming compact prismatic units. Individually, its components are fragile: the mesh is flexible, and the stones are small and irregular. Yet when assembled, they create a structure that is remarkably stable, durable, and effective. The wall’s solidity emerges from the aggregation of many modest elements, reflecting the strength that arises through collective action.

The process of construction is as significant as the resulting form. Time, effort, and patience are integral to the intervention, from loading raw materials at dawn in a nearby quarry, to transporting them along the semi-rural (or semi-urban?) roads of northern Portugal, and finally to placing 23 tons of stone by hand, one piece at a time. The wall is thus not only a physical structure, but the material trace of a shared, collective labour.