Our visit to Braga was prompted by an invitation to contribute to the Connecting Commutes project as part of the Portuguese Capital of Culture Braga 25. So we set out to discover the city, its surroundings and the municipal public transport system under the guidance of our project manager Luís Pinto. The quest was to develop a suitable artistic intervention for the buses that criss-cross the town, to be implemented in 2025.

Having free bus passes for the whole bus network felt like we had been handed the key to the city. Of course this also meant some trips to the end of the line, where cobbled streets give way to lush green forests.

Soon we started to pay attention to the bus stops too and counted more than a dozen different designs spread throughout the districts of Braga.

Further bus rides offered us a surprise visit to the APC instrument factory in the Celeirós district of Braga who still produce the Cavaquinho, a grandparent of today’s Ukulele, and a trip to the TUB bus network headquarters …

… as well as the university radio station RUM where we were shown their transmission signal path, and witnessed the news anchor announcing our masterclass and workshop at the fabulous Theatro Circo.

The workshop was organised by Braga 25 as part of our visit:

Braga is a UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts with an astonishing number of organisations, university courses and venues dedicated to showcasing artistic works in the field. It came as no surprise then to encounter media art students, researchers, artists and organisers as engaging participants of our radio art workshop. We look forward to our return in 2025.