Diários de Campo Restrito (Restricted Field Diary)

Commissioned by researchers Professor Inês Moreira and Professor Joana Rafael as part of the Refinery Board project, this video essay documents the temporal evolution of the Matosinhos Refinery in Portugal between 2022 and 2025. The visual material was captured during guided tours organized by Casa da Arquitectura as part of the Open House Porto program. The film explores the deactivation of the former Galp oil refinery—a massive industrial site currently entangled in legal disputes and facing high-pressure real estate speculation. By juxtaposing footage from different years, the work argues for a reflection on industrial obsolescence and the "ghosts" of a carbon-dependent past that still haunt the landscape.

The sound design and editing, which I developed, are central to the film's dialectic. The narrative is driven by the tour guide’s explanations, which I interleave with a sonic atmosphere that emphasizes the monumental scale and the eerie silence of the abandoned structures. The editing technique of overlapping timeframes allows the viewer to witness the systematic dismantling of the refinery’s equipment, such as the iconic gas spheres, transforming the video into a piece of industrial archaeology. This video essay was officially presented at the "4 Elementos" exhibition in Coimbra, serving as a critical document of a territory in transition.