The ‘Sorriso do Acanto’ exhibition by Sara Domingos
Mértola Museum Cláudio Torres | Palaeo-Christian Basilica
17 January to 28 June 2026
In the artist’s words, ‘O Sorriso do Acanto (The Acanthus Smile) combines artistic practice and research, using creation as a tool for reflection on heritage, identity, diversity and intercultural dialogue. The project focuses on cultural exchanges and on the ways meanings and perceptions transform over time. By tracing the acanthus leaf motif across different contexts and representations, I question its idealization in Western art. Deconstructing this commonplace of Art History, I invite a critical and creative reflection that goes beyond artistic practice.
During the creative and research process, in which I privileged subjectivity, multiple meanings began to emerge, often concealed and contradictory. From the outset, I felt a certain tension between my artistic journey — shaped by Islamic-Portuguese culture and by my interest in the cultures of North Africa, West Asia, and Asia — and the invitation from the Museum of Lisbon – Roman Theatre to create a work (2024) based on the plant motifs in its collection. (…) The title ‘O Sorriso do Acanto’ arose from a passage in Virgil’s Eclogues, in which the poet describes the acanthus as smiling. That image, which intrigued me deeply at the time, became the poetic key to the project – a gesture of response from the natural world to culture, an echo of reciprocity between the human and the vegetal. Although, at first, that smile seemed ironic to me – as if the plant were reacting to the very idealization to which it had been subjected – I found in it the essence of the work: the space where thorn and curve coexist.
In 2025, the project entered a new phase, with the creation of a piece inspired by the archaeological remains of Mértola and the installation of all the work in the Palaeo-Christian Basilica of the Mértola Museum Cláudio Torres. This port city, with its unique history of cultural and commercial exchange, reveals North African, Greek, Byzantine, and Islamic influences. In this more serene stage, I realized that, in order to better understand ancient Mediterranean culture, it might be necessary to step outside it.’
Visit us at the Palaeo-Christian Basilica!
About Sara Domingos (Lisbon, 1973) – She develops an artistic practice at the boundary between fine, graphic, and textile arts, focusing on dialogue between cultures. She was honoured with the Barzakh – Ibn’Arabi Prize 2020/21 (MIAS Latina, Murcia) for an artistic trajectory marked by Arab and Islamic references. She has exhibited regularly and collaborated with institutions such as the Museu de Mértola Cláudio Torres, the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, the Centre for Luso-Arab Studies of Silves, the Museum of Lisbon – Roman Theatre, the Faro Municipal Museum, and the Museum of Islamic Art Pergamon (Berlin), as part of the project Culturalxocollabs – Weaving the Future. Her work has been featured in publications such as Jornal de Letras, Al-Irfan (Institute of Hispano-Portuguese Studies at Mohammed V University, Rabat), AramcoWorld Magazine and the Bulletin of ICOM Portugal. Her most recent projects include Bordar o Sereno, with the participation of migrant women (in partnership with the Portuguese Council for Refugees) and O Sorriso do Acanto, centred on intercultural dialogue in the Mediterranean world, in partnership with the UNESCO Chair in Ethnobotany at the Polytechnic Institute of Beja).
