The Adventures of Alice in the country of people

“Transportai A handful of land every day and you will smell a mountain,” Confucius

I’m Alice’s neighbor. We met on the street separating our houses. And for over a dozen years we’ve been crossing over here.

Alice’s work is made of clay, neighborhood and people. It is also made up of people from the neighborhood that shape the clay in the courses of Alice. And the neighborhood of Alice may be the world where it disseminates its work, its technique and mastery and, fundamentally, the personal, reflective and creative development of the community through art, in the transgenerational courses at the Atelier de Algés, in the curatorship of Exhibitions it presents with its pupils or with its personal work also centered on always current and global themes (condition of women, literature, Earth, heritage), in conferences on the Portuguese blue Heritage or in the training activities that organizes or participates. The world of Alice is the real digital world that today deserves all the attention because, unlike the other — which isolates, makes it dependent and sedentary — that of Alice promotes encounter, history, communication, concentration, technique, sharing of knowledge, silence , the art of being and doing, the art of happening, the art of being able to be. And this all with the fingers, the hands, the mud and the time.

The work of Alice is also so, political, social, inclusive, community and, ultimately and not least, rather, on the contrary, artistic, interventionist, affective, alive.

I have a tremendous admiration for people who are against the tide, with their independent and entrepreneurial work (here, yes, it makes sense this adjective that has been used abusively in the business world and technocrat). With humility I accepted Alice’s invitation to write about her. The work done by artist Alice Diniz, ceramist, curator, trainer, Galerista, friend, mother, woman, companion, grandmother, does not write, SEE and SIT.

Thanks for the inspiration.

Paula Cardoso (graphic Designer)

PS: I have had the pleasure of presenting a project to socks with Alice: a clay sardines in the Lisbon Festival contest.