This exhibition has three sections with works mainly from the Modern Collection of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum but some works from the collection of Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian are also on display .

The first –  ‘Between the earth and the sea (and the sky)’ – takes on particular symbolic importance in a region so shaped by travel and the site of diverse cultures and creeds. Here, there are works in which the natural features propose reflections on the world, life and the sacred.

The second exhibition section – ‘Mediterranean’ –, includes works that symbolically depict the Mediterranean universe reflected through its cities, ports, maritime ambiences, mythological representations of classical antiquity and the monotheist legacies, interpretations of a beautiful and eternal space but also one of great conflict.

The third and final section – and ‘The discovery of the world/journey’s end’ – evokes the memory of the exotic, far distant destinations as well as the unknown forms, ideas and objects to Europeans but that became accessible following the contribution made by the Portuguese explorers of the 15th and 16th centuries. This reveals the new latitudes, landscapes and species encountered in Africa, America and the Far East, exposing the influences and fascinations for the culturally distinct expressions of other peoples. Five centuries later, Tavira, one of the leading Portuguese port cities of that period, again guards and evokes these expressions of far distant influences.

Timeless seas
_{Crossing cultures, crossing times}

23 Nov 2019 – 23 Feb 2020
Palácio da Galeria do Museu Municipal de Tavira
Curators: Jorge Queiroz, Daniel Santana