Ana Rodríguez (2013)

La Fragancia de los pensamientos salvajes

The project seeks the free and open exploration of the local “sacred rites”, from the point of view of someone who hasn’t been trained in the Catholic tradition and has no previous experience in Portugal. Following a virgin, but not naïve, appearance, questions will induce honest narratives, explanations, stories of local traditions relating to the connection between religion and daily life as well as special events. The community dimension (festivals, processions, baptisms) and the domestic universe (prayers, healing rituals) will both be explored. This Is not an anthropological investigation of an academic but an experimental investigation. The project is not intended to capture the treasures of the localelders but to bea humble cultural exchange. An Uruguayan who searches the Portuguese rural cultural memory garden, seeking possible influences on the traditions that have shaped, with contributions from Spanish colonists and immigrants and indigenous cultural elements, the cosmogenic forest of rural Uruguayan cultures, the most influenced by the contribution of Brazilian Portuguese. But you never know what and who is going to be found. From there cording of these meetings, two radio pieces will be created, with an estimated duration of 20minutes each. These radio pieces will consist of different materials: conversations, interviews, soundscapes, recitations, readings, archival material and will seek ways to bring to the sound narrative elements that give background information and sensitive understanding.

Born in Montevidéu (Uruguai, 1975), at the age of twenty-five. Ana Rodríguez left the world of urban life, where she grew up, and turned to the country side. She became a squat in a rural village with one hundred and twenty inhabitants, where with their support she lived alone for six years. The seventh year came and she felt nostalgia for the city, where she returned for the realization of a project exploring the oral and audiovisual archive that the artist built together with the village’s inhabitants and the endorsement of the Bishopric of Tacuarembó. Rodriz didn’t adapt, and the love for a boy took her to emigrate to Basque Country where she now lives, taking care of a couple of sheep, making cheese, and investigating the sound memory of some local pastors. Ana Rodriguez, has a Degree in Anthropological Sciences from the University of Uruguay and obtained a Master ‘s Degree in theory and practice of creative documentary by Universidad Autónoma Barcelona. She worked on sound and video ethnographic archive projects both in the region of Tacuarembó (Northern Uruguay) and the Carranza Valley, Bizkaia (Basque Country) where she lived from 2008 to 2013. She was part of the creative teams of documentary films as “Aquells Joves” (2012), “Desde Baix” (2012),”Seat, las Sombras del Progreso” (2012) and directed ethnographic films as “La Ganadería enel Valle de Carranza” (2008), “Las Hogueras San Juan y El Divino del Cerro la Ventana” (2005) and “El Jesús de Praga del Cerro de la Virgen” (2005).