Seixal, Portugal

Carved in December 2007 into the abandoned Quinta de Coina estate on Estrada da Quinta da Areia, in Seixal — known as the Palácio do Rei do Lixo — this piece belongs to the earliest phase of Scratching the Surface, made weeks after the project's first public presentation in Lisbon. The site's neglect, informal histories and slow accumulation of material traces suited Vhils' shift from graffiti's additive logic to excavation and removal, treating the building's weathered walls as an archive whose layers could be uncovered. The work helped establish the conceptual foundations of his practice — creative destruction, and the belief that walls hold the social and historical memory of the places they inhabit.