Foz and surroundings – Writings & Drawings of Dora Wordsworth Quillinan: 1845-1846

Abstract

For "few [six] months" Dora Wordsworth Quillinan lived in Foz, having traveled to Porto, hometown of her husband Edward Quillinan, of Irish descent. She registered her memories in two volumes that comprise Journal of a Few Months' Residence in Portugal and Glimpses of the South of Spain, published in 1847. Dora was based in the area of the Church of São João da Foz, strolling around the "village of Foz", also in the city and surroundings. She transposed details and panoramas into writing, through detailed observation of people, situations and landscapes. Her reflections invoked poetic and historical contents, enriching a book that intended to do justice to Portugal and the Portuguese. She deconstructed stereotypes, linked by her countrymen, considering them wrong. On the other hand, her ability to track the surroundings (in anthropological, artistic and landscape convergence) was registered in drawings and sketches. Approaching and moving away, Dora assumed her status as a foreigner, reverberating in her surroundings. Some of her paths were reconstructed, photographing the current views of the places, in a search for "her observer places". Through this associated methodology, I confronted her images and text with the materials I produced, discovering a beyond time within the space.