Tânia Dinis is an award-winning filmmaker, performer, and visual artist with roots in Famalicão, a small city in the north of Portugal.

Her practice explores memory, intimacy and family histories through a deep engagement with archives, family albums, documents, and memory objects sourced from her family environment, markets, or shared experiences with communities. 

In a work spanning film, photography, instalations, performances and workshops, Tânia crafts deeply engaging narratives about very particular, yet universal stories primarily focused on the lived experiences of women in peripheral geographies in Portugal.

Earlier this year, Tânia joined us at 180 Creative Lab, where she led a workshop with 12 members of Maior Idade, where participants were invited to recontextualize their own photographic archives with the help of Tânia.

Tânia's film "Tão Pequeninas, Tinham o Ar de Serem Já Crescidas" was awarded best Portuguese short film at Indie Lisboa this year.

We were lucky to spend some time with Tânia to learn more about her work, why she's drawn to these stories and why the family archive is such an important cultural object.