Marta Mendonça: "I want to intervene in art objects from the four corners of the world" | Conservator-Restorer Day

With a huge passion for history and art, Marta Mendonça "knew that something in the arts" called out to her, but she wasn't sure what. Today, at the age of 20, she tells us that it was in Conservation and Restoration that she found the answer.

"I started researching the area, watched and re-watched countless videos of interventions, almost compulsively," confesses the final year student in the Bachelor in Art, Conservation and Restoration at Católica, in Porto. That's how she discovered "a special, perfect world that I wanted to be a part of."

For the future conservator-restorer, "Art, in all its forms, was, and is, a record of the evolution of Man". She believes that "it is up to professionals to preserve this collective identity and ensure the longevity of certain objects, which are the marks of certain cultures and chronologies."

Determined to be part of this world and dedicated to this mission, Marta chose the Conservation and Restoration course at the Universidade Católica because of the theoretical-practical balance and because "it seemed to be the best option, from the syllabus to the time spent in direct contact with the artistic work, which greatly helps in the training of the conservator-restorer."

After talking to the coordinator of the undergraduate programme, Carla Felizardo, at the School of Arts Open Day, "there were no doubts whatsoever", and she applied solely to the degree course at Universidade Católica.  "I could not have made a better choice. I feel fulfilled and truly happy at this educational institution," she says today, certain of her decision.

Regarding the course, she highlights the "activities organised during the Winter and Summer Campaigns, which really teach you how a work team works" in a professional context, she explains.

As for the future and certain that the tools she has gathered "over the last three years will be properly applied" in the world that awaits her, Marta confesses her various plans: "I want to get 'hands on', I want to be able to touch and work on various works of art, I want to intervene on objects from and in the four corners of the world."

But of these four corners, "there is a 'piece' of land in the Mediterranean called Italy that has always sparked" her interest. Were it not for the fact that this is the home of the piece of art she would most like to restore, if she could choose any in the world. "Fascinated by the Italian Renaissance and the patronage of the Medici, Florence is the guardian of one of my favourite works of art. I would love to be able to intervene in Sandro Botticelli's Primavera. There's something special about that particular work."