Paths of Rural Mobility
Artist Residency
6-25 October 2014
Civl Parish of Sul, Municipality of São Pedro do Sul (PT)

Public Presentation
Saturday, 25 October at 15h00
Meeting point: Main square, Sul
Geo coordinate: 40.834286, -8.042622

With:

Sérgio Bonilha
Luciana Ohira
Riccardo Bertan
João Farelo
Pierce Warnecke
Tiago Carvalho
Bruno Caracol
Aleksandra Vercauteren
Pedro Ferreira
Odaír Monteiro

General coordination: Luís Costa
Artistic direction: Manuela Barile
Production team: Nely Ferreira e Susana Rocha
Content direction: Rui Costa

Support:
Municipality of São Pedro do Sul
Civil Parish of Sul
Associação das Fragas, Aveloso

Funding: Sate Secretary of Culture | General Office for the Arts

Rural societies as the mountain ranges in the Gralheira mountain range (central Portugal) are usually understood as still being anchored in a sense of rootedness, of deep connection between communities and their landscapes of reference, in which mobility is essentially seen as being forced by extreme circumstances, as an exit from the natural flow of life (eg, emigration or military draft).

However, if one attentively analyses to the social history of these communities, we find a whole series of movement impulses since ancient times, and were probably the limitations of routes and transportation that made the radius of action more limited than the desired or needed. On the other hand, the rapid social change of Portugal in recent decades stimulated an increase in the pace and range of geographical mobility, and people with life experiences abroad or even born elsewhere are now common in rural villages.

Binaural/Nodar’s artist residency program in sound and intermedia arts for 2014 is focused on the ancestral and contemporary aspects of mobility in the rural areas of Gralheira mountain range trying, by hosting artists’ field work together with communities and landscapes and innovative uses of audiovisual technologies, and interactive communication, to contribute to the debate on the new directions of rural mobility.

The Brazilian intermedia artists  Sérgio Bonilha and Luciana Ohira will creatively investigate cases of extra-sensory perception and out of body experiences, related to what one might call “the mobility of the soul”; Italian sound artist Riccardo Bertan will assume his condition of tourist to work on the corresponding slow and idle mobility that contrasts with the rhythms of everyday life and work; The American (living in Berlin) sound artist Pierce Warnecke proposes to find ways that lead to nowhere and to derive creative conclusions from them. The young Portuguese artist João Farelo will establish a direct contact with current and former rhythms of shepherding and transhumance. Finally, the Cvgmurda collective (composed by Tiago Carvalho, Bruno Caracol, Aleksandra Vercauteren, Pedro Ferreira and Odair Monteiro) will search for abandoned spaces (a perfect symbol of the mobility of life, one that can lead to emigration and even to death) and then develop sound and body improvisations with found materials.

The result of all these projects will be presented live on October 25th at 15:00 in the parish of Sul (municipality of São Pedro do Sul), a perfect context for a contact with local communities and with a very interesting group of artists with different backgrounds and creative approaches.