João Vidal is the owner of a Santa Catarina tiles factory, a heritage left by the Moors after the occupation of the Península Ibéria. I meet him one of these endless summer days whilst taking on a secondary road back home. Alongside him have worked men who nowadays have their own businesses spread across the Santa Catarina Region in Southern Portugal. Artur Cavaco is one of these men. He runs a factory 17 kilometers to the west alongside Angelo Martins, his brother and business partner. The two factories maintain good relations and occasionally work together to collect barro, the raw material for the production of these handcrafted tiles. There are still other factories working in the region that I intend to visit and document. The purpose of this project is to tell the stories of these men and put into context the impact of the production of these tiles in the region.
