“The Seven Years Seven Pieces project, to be carried out between 2016 and 2022, corresponds to the period between Cláudia Dias' 44th and 50th birthdays.During this time, Cláudia set out to create a new play every year, always with a different partner, and to write seven texts, to be published with design and graphics by António Jorge Gonçalves. Each play is named after one of the seven days of the week (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday), followed by a subtitle. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Following each piece annually and following the sequence is a different experience from seeing each one in isolation or alternately. Seven pieces plus one, this one made up of the whole; or countless others, resulting from the various possible combinations and the particular collection that each person wants and can make. The designer bet that she would inscribe this cycle in her personal calendar and in public life. The project is aimed at the Portuguese, Europeans and the whole world. Seven Years Seven Pieces belongs to everyone.

The production of shows and the cultural industry matured in Portugal at the same time as the democratic regime, stabilizing in a system of creation linked to the municipal authorities, on the one hand, and the press and audiovisual industry, on the other. The performing arts seem to operate according to the principle that the reputation and fame of those who do it is more important than the work actually done. This principle holds true for the political regime. It is necessary to have notoriety in order to be elected and govern the country, and it is more important to have this visibility than anything else, at the various levels of the public administration of said regime, including cultural centers, theatres, festivals and groups supported by the state. The same goes for shows and commercial fiction. Cláudia Dias' work is a radical alternative to this transformation of plays into a fetish. The protagonism of the artist and her partners is minimal. Importance is given to the work. Cláudia Dias creates shows about the impossibility of understanding the world and the need to transform the world for the better, both from the point of view of an imagined community. The themes and forms are chosen according to a worldview that articulates individual and collective aspects and aims to expose the contradictions between subjectivity and objectivity.

The integrity and consistency of the proposals make the works stand out from the rest of Portuguese art and break through the (symbolic) blockade of contemporary artistic creation and cultural production. These pieces are about reality outside the performance hall and, more than that, they are a reality in themselves, not subordinate, capable of destabilizing the public's notion of things, particularly public things.”

Jorge Louraço Figueira