Ana Terrinca – An architect with an artisan’s soul

“From very early on, as long as I can remember!” This was the answer to the question “Where did the love for handicrafts come from?,” which we asked Ana Catarina Terrinca. As she told us, she had her first exhibition of faience and porcelain painting at the age of 9, at the Museu dos Fósforos, in Tomar, Portugal. At 13, she meets my mentor, Higina Branco, with whom she had her first contact with African materials. “From then on, I saw handicrafts as a source of income. I graduated in Architecture, a profession that I still practice today, but always in parallel with arts and crafts.”

Fascinated by cooperative handicrafts, she is also a big fan of people, which is why creating Bairro Bistrô in 2012 was such a natural step. When developing an emerging construction project in the Magoanine Community for the victims of the floods, the architect came across several people without a source of income, but with a mastery of some form of art. Determined to help these communities put their products on the market, she made the decision to intervene. “The Bairro project was born this way, in order to bring the products developed in the neighbourhoods to the city and contribute to the family income.”

Bairro Bistrô was born in order to bring the products developed in the neighbourhoods to the city and contribute to the family income.

“Working with your hands is very therapeutic, it’s feeding the soul, working the heart and conveying passion to the product.”

Bairro was born, and today it is almost a place of worship for art aficionados who go there to buy, but also to learn. In this space, workshops are held with local artisans and, more than classes, they are an opportunity to meet people, share life stories, travel reports and much more. After all, that’s what art is all about!

Ana confesses that the experience of working with local artisans has been “ravishingly fabulous.”

“We have a lot of artists and artisans with ‘golden hands’, with the ability to create a superior quality product and work together. Each and every one puts their added value on the piece and make you learn every day and we are dependent on teamwork, from the teams that buy the raw material to those who create and to those who sell.”

Asked if craftsmanship is a vocation or a passion, Ana admits that it is both, “together and mixed, associated with constant therapy.”

Despite having a full life thanks to her profession as an architect, she always finds time for crafts, an activity that fills her soul. “Working with your hands is very therapeutic, it’s feeding the soul, working the heart and conveying passion to the product.”

Satisfied with the positive feedback she has received from the workshops she holds at Bairro, Ana assumes that the main objective she has set for them has been fulfilled, which is to help the client to value the entire creation process.

And for all those who have followed her path, she leaves a message: “Living and doing what we love with passion, involving others who do not have the same courage but who have potential.”

Issue 73 May/Jun | Download.