EN “Limited Edition”, now in its fourth iteration, is a gathering of viewpoints that intersect without ever merging, bringing together a body of works that share the same language—photography—and, through it, translate distinct ways of inhabiting the world. There is no overarching theme that structures this collection, nor a narrative that explains it; rather, there is an open field of sensibilities, where the documentary, the photojournalistic, and the authorial intertwine, tracing an imperfect and living map of the contemporary world.

Each image is a gesture of holding on to the ephemeral, an attempt to fix an instant before it disappears: the breath of a moment, the oblique glimmer of a light, the intimate murmur of things.

Photojournalism speaks to the urgency of events, to the quick pulse of history; documentary photography observes time with delicacy and patience, like someone gathering traces in the attempt to build memory; and the authorial gaze introduces a more intimate and free dimension,transforming perception into language, reality into feeling

“Limited Edition” does not seek unity or harmony— it prefers friction as fertile ground. Here, differences coexist, touch, and drift apart. There are images that tell, and others that simply breathe. There are silences more eloquent than any narrative. For each photograph is, in itself, a world both complete and incomplete. Some works impress through clarity, others through stillness or emotional intensity.

In any case, despite certain asymmetries, this exhibition reflects, in part, an authentic view of what photographic contemporaneity in Portugal is. The title is also a metaphor. “Limited Edition” reminds us that each photograph is a unique imprint of the perceptible—a fragment of time torn from oblivion, an attempt to hold the impossible still. Yet each of the images on display reminds us that the act of photographing is, at heart, an exercise in choice. And together, these images reflect the tension between what one seeks to preserve and what is inevitably lost, reminding us that every photograph is, deep down, a delicate attempt to fix the ephemerous.

João Miguel Barros