Sementeira 12 ⬤ miguelrcardoso.com

Anita's drawings and Pedrokas's compositions

We had an epiphany when we came across the work of Anita, a friend with Down syndrome who is institutionalised for health reasons, which is why she was prevented from participating in Sementeira in person. Anita spends part of her days engaged in an almost generative drawing practice: an extremely fertile output of floral compositions, painted with coloured pencils, sometimes with felt‑tip pens. She gave us hundreds of pieces to build the graphic imaginary of this edition.

In the usual logic of avoiding the most immediate symbols of the Left Bloc's political sphere, here too we chose to expand the symbol of the red carnation into a highly vibrant, richly coloured garden. Intervening on Anita's works, Pedrokas drew shapes to "frame", interrupt or accompany them, as well as working on the contrasts and colour saturations of the originals, making them electric. He also added another graphic motif: he sprinkled the illustrations with "eye" emojis (👁️), alluding to the watchful attitude of a people who do not want setbacks in the rights won with April.

Illustrations by Pedrokas: compositions based on Anita's drawings

Street lettering and Miguel's compositions

Sementeira 12's visual identity also features the most common thread in the event's graphic history: the collection of disparate characters to format the text of communication materials. This time, the scope of the collection was the streets of Viseu — traditional shop signs, traffic signs and street name plates — with a special focus on hand‑drawn characters on traditional tile panels.

Collected characters and shapes

Typographic compositions with the collected characters

This edition's symbols (Free Palestine!)

Open call

Stickers

Poster

Banner

Social media

Sementeira 12 Manifesto

Reminds me of a beautiful dream, almost finished...
Fausto (1982)

Sementeira, as its name suggests, aims to be fertile ground for creating dialogues and relationships within the community, seeking to foster collective participation and the building of a free and just society — for which we fight and will always fight.

Making art and being able to share it is a way of ensuring an awake society, capable of demanding from life as much as it dares to dream. A society that does not lower itself or submit to what so often tries to convince us: that things are the way they are simply because that's how it is, and that we might as well accept that it couldn't be better.

In 2024, we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the 25th of April. Fifty years ago, Portugal was immersed in a dark night until the 25th of April came and fascism, censorship and the oppression imposed by a totalitarian and authoritarian government upon its people were overthrown. But the legacy of April's values is a long, transformative project. It is a dream that each of us must fulfil. The 25th of April is not a symbolic date, empty in itself, remembered year after year out of "obligation", sung softly by tired voices and dull eyes. "April is a beautiful dream, almost finished". April is an almost month; almost ripe, almost fulfilled, almost yet to be fulfilled. That "almost" is what we fill in, and here we are — never out of obligation, but out of love, with joy and will, inclusive, attentive, with open arms. No matter how much they try to tell us otherwise, "we can't all fit in here" — we are the green and red of the carnations and of the flags on the rifles of the soldiers who liberated their people, and we, the united people, know how precious, magnificent and spacious our April country is.

In many ways April is an almost month, but there is also an April that has begun. There is a feminist April. There is an LGBTQIA+ April. There is an April of the welfare state. There is an April of public education and universal healthcare. There is an April that welcomes. That sows, and that reaps. No one erases history, no matter how much today is threatened: however much remains undone, we are still the same people. Within each of us lives the April revolution, and each of us is tasked with continuing to make it happen, day after day, night after night. Many want to do precisely the opposite: to destroy it. Those who live this same beautiful, almost finished dream cannot ignore it or let it pass: now is not too late, now is not too early — it is time to fight the whole fight!