RAISING A NATION
Step into a world where history and art intertwine.
Inspired by the laundry billowing from Portuguese balconies, this installation reimagines the daily ritual of hanging washing as a profound act of love and a symbol of care. It transforms a simple domestic act into a testament to the tireless love and grit that built families and fuelled communities, including those whose love now lives in the wind and memory.
Women carry the ancestral power of creation: the gift of growing life, the threshold of birth, and the alchemy of breast milk—the first food of a nation. This is more than sustenance; it is a child’s first connection to the village, a biological transmission of strength, immunity, and love.
Through striking portraits of real women, personal legacies are interwoven with the timeless wisdom of folklore and the traditions they’ve carried forward.
Raising a Nation is an immersive journey of sight and sound—an invitation to connect with the unyielding spirit of the women who shape, feed and fuel a nation.
Entre num mundo onde a história e a arte se entrelaçam.
Inspirada na roupa estendida nas varandas portuguesas, esta instalação reimagina o ritual diário de estender a roupa como um ato profundo de amor e um símbolo de carinho. Transforma um simples ato doméstico num testemunho do amor incansável e da determinação que construíram famílias e alimentaram comunidades, incluindo aquelas cujo amor agora vive no vento e na memória.
As mulheres carregam o poder ancestral da criação: o dom de gerar vida, o limiar do nascimento e a alquimia do leite materno — o primeiro alimento de uma nação. Isto é mais do que sustento; é a primeira ligação de uma criança à aldeia, uma transmissão biológica de força, imunidade e amor.
Através de retratos marcantes de mulheres reais, os legados pessoais entrelaçam-se com a sabedoria intemporal do folclore e as tradições que elas transmitiram.
Raising a Nation é uma viagem imersiva de imagens e sons — um convite para se conectar com o espírito inabalável das mulheres que moldam, alimentam e impulsionam uma nação.
SPECIAL THANKS TO
Photography
- Domenico Bandiera
- Filipe Chagas
- Tony Cole
- Charlotte Macke
- Saúl Sigüenza
- Bimal Chhetry
- Dương Cao Quốc
- Suzy Starlite
From the Age Without Limits project:
- Gemma Taylor
- Mark Epstein
- Alexander Caminada
- Elliot Manches
VENUE
The beautiful people of Malaica Social Club - Pedro, Ruby et al., plus the team at Turma Creative, our joint graphic designers.
TECHNICAL
Filipe Chagas - sound design | Simon Campbell - recording & installation setup | the lovely and thankfully tall, Tomé Louro - installation setup.
Make My Fucking Milk, recorded at Supertone SonicLab, Foz do Arelho. Portugal.
The History of Lavadouros
Photo: Joshua Benoliel, courtesy of Arquivo Municipal de Lisboa.
A woman only space across Europe | The Public Living Room
In Portugal, the lavadouro público (public washhouse) was the "internet" of its time. Before indoor plumbing became standard in the mid-to-late 20th century, these stone structures were a vital infrastructure.
The architecture of labour: They were designed with long, sloped stone tanks. Women would stand side-by-side, often for 6 to 10 hours a day.
The job of doing the laundry was reserved for women, who washed all their family's laundry.
Washerwomen (laundresses) took in the laundry of others, charging by the piece. As such, wash-houses were an obligatory stop in many women's weekly lives and became a sort of institution or meeting place. It was a women-only space where they could discuss issues or simply chat.
The social "liberation": While the work was grueling, it was rarely lonely. At the lavadouro, women were away from the watchful eyes of husbands or employers. They sang "cantigas," shared remedies, settled disputes, and formed "washing collectives" where they would help each other with particularly heavy items like wool blankets.
The hardship: Despite the community, it was physically destructive. Chronic rheumatism from cold water and "washerwoman's back" from leaning over stone were common ailments.
LAVADOURO DA RUA DA ILHA - CALDAS DA RAINHA
The Lavadouro in Caldas da Rainha
“The Caldas Scent: The sharp, clean aroma of Sabão Azul e Branco (Blue and White soap) filled the air of the Bairro da Ponte for over a century.”
Caldas da Rainha was founded as a thermal spa city by Queen D. Leonor and beacuse of this, the management of water has always been sophisticated. While the wealthy bathed in the thermal hospital, local women utilized the runoff and nearby river springs for the city's heavy labour.
Built in the late 19th century, this washhouse was the social engine for the "lower" part of the city. With its classic architecture and long granite tanks, it was here that the families of the legendary pottery workers—names like Bordallo Pinheiro, Mafra, Figueiredo, and Elias— gathered to clean the white dust of the ceramic factories from their clothes.
Unlike many others that fell into ruin, the Lavadouro da Rua da Ilha was restored in 2015. It stands today as a "living museum" and a monument to communal strength.
LANGUAGE & LAVADOUROS
Photo: Joshua Benoliel, courtesy of Arquivo Municipal de Lisboa.
Está sempre no lavadouro - always at the washhouse: historically, it was a coded way of saying a woman was a gossip. In some regions, the act of gossiping itself was simply called "Lavadouro".
Trouxa - the bundle: a wet laundry wrap weighing up to 60kg—the weight of an adult—carried balanced on the head.
Sogra - the cushion: a fabric ring placed on the head to stabilize the Trouxa. Literally translated as "Mother-in-Law"—the support you couldn’t do without.
Lavar roupa suja - to wash dirty laundry: usually means to resolve private or scandalous conflicts in public. It directly references the public nature of the lavadouros, where everyone could see your "stains" (your secrets) being scrubbed out for all to see.
Lavar a Língua - to wash the tongue: a playful, slightly surreal way to describe the lavadouro experience. It perfectly captures the idea that the women were cleaning their clothes while simultaneously "cleaning" (exercising) their tongues through gossip.
Bater a roupa e bater a língua - to beat the clothes and beat the tongue.
Ouro Líquido - Liquid Gold / Breast milk: The lavadouro was the office where mothers simultaneously cleaned the family's clothes and fed the next generation.
Mexericar - to gossip / to meddle.
Mexeriqueira - a gossip: the term mexerico (gossip) is deeply tied to the "mixing" and "stirring" movements of communal work, like washing or sorting grains. It describes the way a story is "rubbed" and "twisted" until it changes, much like the clothes on the granite.
O Ciclo do Mexerico: the Gossip Cycle , instead of the Wash Cycle: just as the women "stirred" the water and "rubbed" the clothes, they "stirred" the news of the town.
THE INVENTIONS THAT LIBERATED WOMEN
The transition from the public lavadouro to the private laundry room was driven by a series of inventions that fundamentally changed the family dynamic.
The electric washing machine - The “great liberator”: the economist Ha-Joon Chang famously argued that the washing machine changed the world more than the internet.
Time reclaimed: before the machine, a week's laundry took roughly 18 to 20 hours. By the 1950s, the automatic washer reduced this to about 2 hours.
Entry into the workforce: this reclaimed time was the primary driver that allowed women to enter the formal workforce, as they no longer had to dedicate two full days a week just to scrubbing and rinsing.
Wash and wear fabrics (Synthetics): as seen in the Good Housekeeping guides of the 1950s, the invention of Polyester, Nylon, and Acrylic was marketed as a “miracle.”
The end of the iron: traditional linens and cottons required hours of heavy starching and hot ironing. "Wash and Wear" meant a woman could wash a dress, hang it, and have it ready for her family the next morning without the grueling heat of the iron.
The electric iron with steam: before this, women used "sad irons"—heavy blocks of metal heated on a wood-burning stove. They were dangerous and required constant reheating. The lightweight electric steam iron allowed for a "professional" look for the husband’s work shirts with a fraction of the physical effort.
THE PARADOX OF LIBERATION
Photo: Joshua Benoliel, courtesy of Arquivo Municipal de Lisboa.
While the invention of the electric washing machine, iron and synthetic fabrics "liberated" women from the physical pain of the lavadouro, they also created a new kind of isolation.
Isolation: The "social hub" of the village fountain or public tank vanished. The woman was now alone in her kitchen or basement.
The "Rising Standard" Traps: Sociologists note that as washing became easier, society’s standards for cleanliness rose. Instead of washing sheets once a month (common in early history), families began washing them weekly. The machine made the work faster, but the volume of work increased to fill the time.
LAUNDRY TECH IN 2026
The Future of Washers, Dryers & Smart Cleaning refers to the next generation of home appliances integrating AI, IoT, and advanced automation from leaders in China, Germany, and Italy.
Expect washers that detect fabric types and optimize cycles automatically, dryers with heat pumps for energy efficiency, and smart cleaning systems that use apps for remote monitoring, allergen removal, and predictive maintenance.
“THE INTERNET OF THINGS (IoT) We are in the Silent Cycle. Machines that talk to our phones instead of us talking to our neighbours. We saved time, but silenced the community.”
| 1920: The Public Washhouse | 2026: The Private Hub |
|---|---|
| Collective Intelligence | Artificial Intelligence |
| Women sharing news, remedies, and community wisdom at the stone basin. | AI sensors detecting fabric weight, soil levels, and optimizing detergent dosage. |
| Soul Washing | Precision Washing |
| The emotional release of venting and singing together to ease the physical burden. | Machines using "Deep Learning" to adjust water hardness and cycle intensity for zero-waste. |
| Human Connection | Wi-Fi Connection |
| A literal bond formed through side-by-side labour and shared public space. | Appliances synced via SmartThings or ConnectLife to alert your phone when the cycle is done. |
| The Sound of Singing | The Sound of Silence |
| Rhythmic scrubbing and voices filling the village air. | Ultra-quiet digital inverter motors designed to run invisibly in a soundproofed home. |
| Solar Bleaching | Smart Drying |
| Clothes laid on the coradouro (grass) for the sun to naturally whiten. | AI-driven heat pumps and steam sanitization that eliminates 99.9% of bacteria without chemicals. |
the right to dry
Big Knickers in Lisboa. Photo: Suzy Starlite
Believe it or not the freedom to dry your clothes is not available to everyone.
Homeowners Associations (HOAs) in the United States often ban outdoor clotheslines, arguing that hanging laundry is "unsightly" and can lower property values.
As a response, the Right To Dry movement was formed to challenging the bans, arguing that the aesthetic preference of a neighbourhood should not override an individual’s right to save energy and protect the environment.
The legislative push: advocates for the Right to Dry push for state-level legislation that prevents HOAs from banning solar drying. To date, about 20 states have some form of "Right to Dry" or "Solar Rights" laws. These laws generally state that because the sun is a renewable energy resource, prohibiting a clothesline is a violation of a homeowner's right to use solar energy.
Environmental and economic goals: beyond the legal battle, the movement is rooted in environmentalism. Electric clothes dryers are among the most energy-consuming appliances in American households, often accounting for 6% to 10% of total residential energy use. By promoting the "Right to Dry," activists aim to reduce the carbon footprint of the average home while also helping families save hundreds of dollars a year on utility bills.
Shifting cultural perceptions: the movement also seeks to de-stigmatize air-drying. In the mid-20th century, the electric dryer was marketed as a symbol of middle-class status, while the clothesline was framed as a sign of rural poverty. The ‘Right to Dry’ movement works to rebrand air-drying as a sophisticated, eco-conscious choice, much like organic gardening or composting.
My art installations are free | the mission is priceless
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Much love, Suzy