Interior

© Ricardo Lopes - Image from the Interior photography project © Ricardo Lopes - Image from the Interior photography project © Ricardo Lopes - Image from the Interior photography project View all images ↓
View all images ↓
  • Dates
    2018 - 2022
  • Author
  • Locations Leiria, Pombal, Figueiró dos Vinhos, Góis, Penela, Coimbra
Report issue

Interior is a photo-essay about the rural exodus and the widespread depopulation that has been striking the Centro Region of Portugal since the 1960s.

This migration was instigated by the poverty felt during the Estado Novo dictatorship, that ruled the country from 1933 to 1974, alongside the already challenging economic conditions of subsistence agriculture. This is a territory of micro-property, infertile soils and unsuitable to mechanisation, where the survival of families and social rituals was closely linked to the artisanal production of olive oil, cereals and cheese.

In 1974, with the country’s transition to democracy, the ways of life changed: among the youth population, those who had not emigrated to central Europe, moved towards the industrialized coast and settled there for better employment opportunities, education and access to services and infrastructures.

Today, the interior of Portugal is inhabited by an ageing and dispersed population, whose rural traditions and popular knowledge are at imminent risk of extinction. The fragmented and economically unviable agricultural sector and the indifference of the lands’ heirs to their own property has led to an unorganized forest growth that plagues the country with uncontrollable wildfires every year. In this particular area, nearly 300 thousand hectares of forest burned in 2017 and more than 100 people lost their lives in wildfires in Portugal.

Worldwide, 55% of the population live in urban areas, a percentage that is expected to increase, specially in developing countries, up to 68% by 2050, according to the 2018's United Nations Revision of World Urbanization Prospects. In Europe, merely 16% of the population will live in rural regions by 2050.

This is a country hidden in plain sight, camouflaged and neglected by the power of coastal metropolitan areas, lost in the forgetfulness of those who dwell far away. There are still those who continue to call these places home. These are their stories.

© Ricardo Lopes - Image from the Interior photography project
i

Figueiró dos Vinhos, Leiria, Portugal, 22/12/2018 - A road leading down the valley of Foz de Alge, in Figueiró dos Vinhos municipality. According to INE (National Institute of Statistics), this region has lost more than 50% of it's population since 1960 .

© Ricardo Lopes - Image from the Interior photography project
i

Penela, Coimbra, Portugal, 20/12/2018 - Jose Henrique, 51, poses for a portrait while preparing to plant a field of pine trees. Jose earns a living as a day worker, often in informal terms with an unstable income. He's the father of two girls, who moved to the city when his wife divorced him.

© Ricardo Lopes - Image from the Interior photography project
i

Leiria, Portugal, 26/11/2021 - A Eucalyptus forest, a very flammable and fast-growing species that's highly sought after for the paper pulp industry, a 2.4€ billion/year export business.

© Ricardo Lopes - Image from the Interior photography project
i

Penela, Coimbra, Portugal, 17/12/2018 - A flock of birds fly over the small village of Rabaçal, with a population of 291 (INE, 2011). Rabaçal was once a county capital and an important economical centre for cattle fairs and the production of protected designation of origin Rabaçal cheese.

© Ricardo Lopes - Image from the Interior photography project
i

Pombal, Leiria, Portugal, 23/12/2018 - Maria da Silva, 93, poses for a portrait in the living room of her home. This has been her house for more than 70 years, where she raised her two children, Jacinto and Jacinta, named in honor of the Saint who witnessed the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima, in 1917. His son, Jacinto, visits every Sunday, to have lunch and take her to church.

© Ricardo Lopes - Image from the Interior photography project
i

Figueiro dos Vinhos, Leiria, 22/12/2018 - The ruins of a traditional stone house surrounded by burnt forest. In 2017 alone, nearly 300 thousand hectares of forest were burned by wildfires in this particular area.

© Ricardo Lopes - Image from the Interior photography project
i

Pombal, Leiria, Portugal, 10/1/2019 - Portrait of Gerardo Gonçalves, 86, with his son José Gonçalves, 56, in the backyard of their home. Gerardo is a widower and no longer capable of working. José, who got crippled at birth for lack of medical assistance, is the one who takes care of domestic chores like keeping a few sheep they own, taking care of the land around the house and gathering wood for warmth and cooking.

© Ricardo Lopes - Image from the Interior photography project
i

Soure, Coimbra, Portugal, 18/12/2018 - A scarecrow decorated with ribbons that fly into the wind is used to protect a familiar vineyard from birds in the Pombalinho village, with a population of 807 (2011, INE). Pombalinho has lost 60% of its population since 1960.

© Ricardo Lopes - Image from the Interior photography project
i

Penela, Coimbra, Portugal, 17/12/2018 - Portrait of Simoes Armindo, 80, in the ruins of his family's olive mill, in the village of Rabacal. Simoes closed the mill almost 50 years ago to emigrate to France, where he worked in a factory until retiring. "Finding a competent master to run the mill was impossible, everyone was emigrating, I had no choice but closing.", he says.

© Ricardo Lopes - Pombal, Portugal, 9/1/2021 - Native Oak trees, covered in climbing vines, which makes them more vulnerable to wildfires.
i

Pombal, Portugal, 9/1/2021 - Native Oak trees, covered in climbing vines, which makes them more vulnerable to wildfires.

© Ricardo Lopes - Image from the Interior photography project
i

Ansião, Leiria, Portugal, 13/1/2019 - Portrait of Maria da Piedade, 90 with her daughter, Maria Olaia Dias, 61, in the entrance of their home. Maria da Piedade has been a shepherd since the age of 6, securing the production of cheese and wool, which played an important role in the subsistence of the family. She had two daughters, of which only Maria Olaia Dias survived through childhood. Unlike her mother, she attended school but couldn't graduate past second grade. They go out together every morning to shepherd their flock in the mountain.

© Ricardo Lopes - Image from the Interior photography project
i

Pombal, Leiria, Portugal, 21/12/2018 - The ruins of traditional stone houses in Aldeia do Vale (Valley Village), parish of Vila Ca, with a population of 1659 (2011, INE). Today, small villages in this region are inhabited mostly by elder residents, who are getting more and more isolated, a tendency which is expected to continue.

© Ricardo Lopes - Image from the Interior photography project
i

Amieiros, Góis, Portugal, 9/1/2021 - Snow falls over a Eucalyptus plantation, a very flammable and fast-growing species that's highly sought after for the paper pulp industry, exposing the extent of this monoculture in the region. Aside from the fire hazard, conservationists say the eucalyptus sucks up scarce ground water, wipes out competing native species and destroys habitat for native animal life. For decades, efforts to contain its growth ran into opposition from Portugal’s powerful paper industry lobby.

© Ricardo Lopes - Image from the Interior photography project
i

Vila Ca, Pombal, Portugal, 26/11/2021 - Portrait of Horacio Lopes (center), 85, and Esmeralda Rodrigues (right), 84, in the back porch of their home. Horacio was put to work by his family when he was only 9 years-old, having left school at the third grade. In 1965, trying to find better job opportunities, he decided to jump borders and head to France. The group of aprox. 200 man he was with crossed the Pyrynees on foot, by night to avoid detection by the authorities. After a couple of days, the group was intercepted and taken to jail. In order to be released, the group agreed to give the guards all the money they had brought, which meant, for some, the savings of a lifetime. After collecting the money, the guards took the group of man to a train station that would take them to Paris. Horacio lived and worked in France for 16 years, while Esmeralda, his wife, cared for their home and waited for him in Portugal.

© Ricardo Lopes - Image from the Interior photography project
i

Leiria, Portugal, 30/12/2020 - A fallen pine tree in the burnt landscape of Pinhal de Leiria, an 11 thousand hectare reserved pine forest planted in the XIV century, that was devasted by fire in 2017.

© Ricardo Lopes - Image from the Interior photography project
i

Santiais, Portugal, 31/12/2020 - Carlos Mauricio poses for a portrait in his sawmill, which he reckons is bound to close soon due to the lack of work.

© Ricardo Lopes - Image from the Interior photography project
i

Ansião, Leiria, Portugal, 8/1/2019 - The remains of a bonfire burn unattended. Bonfires are traditionally used to burn bushes and dry grass, thus cleaning and preparing the land for cultivation. The splitting of land as it is inherited from one generation to the next is leading to a fractured pattern of micro-property across the territory. Often, the heirs are not interested in exploring the land, nor it is viable, nor do they know where it is located.

© Ricardo Lopes - Image from the Interior photography project
i

Pombal, Leiria, Portugal, 28/12/2018 - Portrait of Maria Ferreira, 81, in the kitchen of her house. Maria was born out of wedlock and was raised by a couple who took her in as means to help around the house. She never went to school and was put to work as a shepherd at the age of 5. In her teen years, an accident with a hoe while ploughing a field took her right eyesight. The families arranged for a convenience wedding with Isidro Fernandes, a young man from a poor family. Maria's adoptive parents left her as an inheritance the house where they now live and raised three children.

© Ricardo Lopes - Image from the Interior photography project
i

Figueiró dos Vinhos, Portugal, 22/12/2018 - The margins of river Alge, with its exposed riverbed. Dry winter seasons following very hot summers often drop the water reserves of the region to a bare minimum.

© Ricardo Lopes - Image from the Interior photography project
i

Góis, Coimbra, Portugal, 12/12/2021 - Afonso Silva, 21, poses for a portrait dressed as a Folião, a traditional character of Entrudo, the three day period that preceeds the catholic Lent. Afonso’s parents, sick of living in the city, started travelling the interior of Portugal and fell in love with Góis, where they settled and where Afonso was born. Having heard stories of the traditional Entrudo by the eldests members of the village, they decided to revive a tradition that was deemed extinct. Dressing themselves as the opposite gender and covering their faces with cork masks, a cheap material on hand, sometimes decorated with goat horns, the Foliões of Entrudo would invade neighbour villages by night and plant a scarecrow there while doing pranks such as opening the animals pens and letting them run loose, stealing eggs and fruit from threes or reciting popular poetry at villager’s windows. Today, Afonso and his partner João Rosa, own a small shop of traditional Folião masks, being the only craftsman to make them in the region.