Oficinas do Convento – Cultural Association of Art and Communication (OC) was founded in 1996 and is based in the Convento de São Francisco, in Montemor-o-Novo (Portugal). It has been a UNESCO Center since 2010. It has two more spaces in the city, apart from the Conveto de São Francisco: the Ceramic Research Center, and the Telheiro da Encosta do Castelo, where the Laboratório de Terra is also located – these spaces make up the Oficinas da Cerâmica e da Terra – OCT.

The activity of its creators contributed to culture being defined as an axis of development for the city, structuring itself as a response to the needs of its artists and researchers, but also in rethinking the conditions of the place, to convert them into cultural added value for inhabitants and visitors.

Its objectives are to continuously work on Dissemination, Promotion, Production and Training in the field of technologies linked to the Arts – Experimentation, Know-how (crafts and innovation) and Recovery of Cultural and Architectural Heritage. With a strong multidisciplinary nature, it works in the fields of Visual Arts, Ceramics, Architecture, Graphic Arts, Digital Fabrication, Music, Sound Sculpture and Engineering, among other possible areas, consolidating local, national and international partnerships and networks, which foster and stimulate collective capabilities in definition and management of strategies, in order to provide autonomy and consequent improvement of material, social and environmental standards of sustainability and relationship with the landscape and community.

www.oficinasdoconvento.com