Date: 13 June
Time: 7 p.m. to 7.45 p.m.
Venue: Lisbon Book Fair, Parque Eduardo VII, Lusíadas Saúde Auditorium (South)

The university press at Instituto Superior Técnico, IST Press, is pleased to announce a tribute session to photographer Augusto Alves da Silva (1963–2025) on 13 June, as part of the 96th Lisbon Book Fair.

The session, titled “Inspirar. Expirar. Fotografar” (“Inhale. Exhale. Photograph”), will feature Alexandre Pomar, António Júlio Duarte, Manuel Heitor, and Ricardo Nicolau.

The event will honour the legacy of one of the most distinctive figures in Portuguese photography and to revisit a remarkable four-decade-long documentary and artistic journey that earned him national and international recognition. Characterised by conceptual rigour and formal purism, his work merges the tradition of documentary photography with a strong critical perspective. He prefers a serial and sequential organisation of images rather than focusing on isolated ones, telling ironic narratives filled with hidden meanings and analyses of the sociopolitical context.

The artist initially enrolled in civil engineering at Técnico before moving to London to study photography. Throughout his career, he maintained close ties with the institution and published three books with Instituto Superior Técnico | IST Press: “ist”, “Shelter”, and “Inspirar. Expirar e Fotografar”.

His first work, “Ist,” considered one of the finest photography books ever published, resulted from a photographic project followed by an exhibition, with text by Jorge Calado. From February 1993 to July 1994, he had complete creative freedom to document life at Instituto Superior Técnico. He captured images of the grand buildings, small construction projects, classes and exams, the study environment in libraries and the research environment in laboratories, leisure time spent in the green spaces, and sports activities. He observed the institution’s routines and followed the students’ experiences, from the humiliating hazing rituals to the joy of the graduating class’s fireworks display. Never before had a project of such scope and duration been undertaken. In the words of Jorge Calado, “(…) after seeing these photographs, we will look at Instituto Superior Técnico with new eyes. I also bet that many years from now, we will look back at these images with nostalgia”.

The book that gives the tribute session its title, “Inspirar. Expirar e Fotografar”, was the author’s most recent publication. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, he was invited by Ceiia to document and describe, through his unique lens, the design process of the first Portuguese ventilator, the Atena.

Alongside this event, IST Press maintains a strong presence at the Lisbon Book Fair until the event closes on 14 June, in G27 stand (East entrance 3).»