TECENDO UM NOVO TEAR was a project that was part of the Santo Tirso City Council’s ‘Partnerships for Urban Regeneration – Margens do Ave’ programme. It consisted of a workshop activity to build a collaborative sculptural piece to symbolise the transformation of the old ‘Spinning Mill’ into the current Cultural Nave of Santo Tirso Town Hall. Recalling the memory of the site and honouring the weaving work of the ‘Santo Thyrso Spinning and Fabric Factory’, the project proposed that the local population weave new fabrics on a new loom to give body to the new Nave Cultural space, which was soon to be inaugurated. ‘Weaving a new loom’ took place in the former “Santo Thyrso Spinning and Textiles Factory” – Fábrica do Teles, a space that belonged, as a workplace, to the daily reality of many families in the Santo Thyrso community.

The main objectives of the project were to design a collaborative activity with the inhabitants of Santo Tirso, to re-inhabit the factory space, transformed into new cultural and artistic practices; recalling the primary functions of the site in close dialogue with a new requalified space through the practical reference of weaving; encouraging the practice of forgotten techniques through the construction of a sculptural object that could remain in place and establish bridges with the International Museum of Contemporary Sculpture; bringing the Nave Cultural space closer to the population of Santo Tirso.

Two classes of students from Modatex’s Weaving and Modelling courses and students from the Santo Tirso Solidarity and Social Action Association worked together to make the Loom a reality.