My Still Side

20 Nov - 30 Nov 2025

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With support from KEF Portugal and curated by the Lisbon Art Office, My Still Side presents the first photography exhibition by Gonçalo Morais Leitão. A director, creator, and producer of frames in transit, accustomed to the speed of the gesture and the dictatorship of the exact second, Gonçalo discovers and explores the opposite of all that: still time, a new way of conceiving the image, not through action, but through restraint.

Gonçalo's photographs stem from the director's mental structure – rigour, composition, balance and rhythm – but in them we find a new territory: that of attentive perception. Here, the artist abandons the command of movement and allows himself to observe. Free from the script, he decides, for the first time, to simply see.

This “still” side is, after all, the other side of the same creative restlessness: that of someone who needs to fix the world before it unravels in movement.

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Gonçalo Morais Leitão was, in the 90s, an entertainer for bars, parties, weddings and christenings with his karaoke rental business. He was a sandwich board man (his first connection to advertising) and almost a lawyer (but he gave up in time before hanging himself with a tie). He was a copywriter for SIC's on-air promotions and an adman for 15 years. He started at EPG TBWA, became creative director at BBDO and created his own agency, Cupido, where he fell in love with the woman of his life. This relationship bore much fruit – a son, a production company, One Couple Show, and three television programmes (“Filho da Pub”, "A Minha Vida Dava Um Anúncio" and “A Selecção Deixa Marcas”), of which he was the author and presenter. In 2015, he was the creative director of RTP's Promotions department, which he combined with a segment on the show “5 Para a Meia Noite” entitled “Desperta o Filho da Pub que Há em Ti”. But in 2018, an old passion was awakened: directing. The result? He wrote and directed two short films (”Se o Tecto Falasse" and “A Boneca”), winning dozens of awards at national and international festivals. He also has a feature film (“Preciosa”) and a series (“Sombra”) in the works. In 2021, in the aftermath of the pandemic, he founded HAND, a commercial film production company born to give a hand to technicians, actors, producers and creators. More recently, he realised that it is not only moving images that move him. He also has a "still side" that he likes very much. Increasingly so. Therefore, he decided to take this facet more seriously. He took photography workshops, took his analogue camera out of the drawer, bought a digital one, then a polaroid, and began conducting experiments that earned him the epithet of “artist” among his friends. In 2025, he embraced this side, launched the Instagram page “O Meu Lado Parado” and embarked on the adventure of setting up his first exhibition.

 

My Still Side (O Meu Lado Parado)
By Gonçalo Morais Leitão
Curated by Lisbon Art Office
Supported by KEF Portugal
Rua Santa Catarina, 9, ground floor, Lisbon.
From 20 to 30 November
From 2:30 pm to 6 pm
Saturday: from 11 am to 1 pm and from 3 pm to 6 pm