PERMANENCE & EVANESCENCE
15 years of artist residencies in rural contexts
Retrospective Exhibition
Vouzela Municipal Museum
12 January to 9 February 2022

Like most of the Portuguese countryside, rural villages from the Portuguese region of Viseu Dão Lafões are undergoing a deep transformation process, between a past made of permanence, in which the occupation of the landscape and social ties developed through a slow generational flow, in a context of subsistence agriculture and cattle raising and of rich material and immaterial culture, and a present where can observe an evanescence of those intricate bonds between rural communities and their material and symbolic territories.

These transformations form a complex and overlapping mesh of realities. There is no before and after. The ancestral ways of living the rural still coexist with new inhabitants, with new landscape uses, with new activities and new priorities, which constitute a fertile ground for following these changes and for carrying out cultural works that could question and problematize, through research and expressive processes, the contradictions, paradoxes and opportunities of this context of accelerated change in the rural world.

The retrospective exhibition “Permanence & Evanescence” marks the 15th anniversary of Binaural Nodar’s artist residency program in rural contexts, which was initiated from the awareness of the importance of the processes described above, from the willingness of Binaural Nodar members to start a process of rooting in the territory based on daily experience with local communities in municipalities such as Vouzela, Castro Daire, Viseu, São Pedro do Sul and Oliveira de Frades and, finally, from the perception that the hosting of artists and researchers from abroad encourages processes of thinking, listening and expressing, which are relevant to a specific and peripheral context such as the Portuguese rural mountain world.

In July 2006 the Binaural Nodar Artist Residency Program officially started in the areas of sound, intermedia and performance arts. The first artist residency took place in the village of Nodar (São Pedro do Sul), where a collective of musicians, performers and audiovisual artists from the Spanish city of León, Coletivo Fora do Tempo, was hosted. In September 2006 the Pushing the Medium symposium took place, in collaboration with the Estonian cultural organization MoKS, an international meeting of around twenty artists who presented in Nodar sound and visual works of localist and communitarian inspiration.

In the following years, more than 150 artists were hosted in villages from the partner municipalities, providing a regular involvement between artists, geographical spaces and rural communities. A meeting between different ways of living, conceiving and translating the world, which was never conceived in a merely instrumental way, in the sense of the simple collection of documentation for the development of the art works, more like something organic, which is built naturally throughout time and which is based on a daily and communicative experience. The artist Binaural Nodar hosts is, by definition, one who takes on the challenge or risk of working with new contexts, the need to adapt to unknown circumstances in direct social contact, adapting, reconfiguring and problematizing aesthetic languages, materials and approaches.

Since 2010, the Binaural Nodar Artist Residency Program defines an aggregating theme for the artistic projects hosted each year, having been worked so far themes such as riverscapes, anthropological voice, rural architecture, religion, marriage, death, mobility in a rural context, relationship with the animal world, psychological aspects of the rural world, among others.

Binaural Nodar thanks from the bottom of its heart to the artists, researchers, institutions and local communities who have participated and collaborated over these fifteen years with its Artist Residency Program, helping to illuminate part of our path made up of wishes, imaginations, doubts and, above all, affections and complicities

Conception and implementation: Luís Costa and Liliana Silva

With: Aaron Ximm, Adam Overton, Alba Boscà, Alessandra Zucchi, Alice Hui-Sheng Chang, Alicja Rogalska, Alma Sauret, Amaya González, Ana Guedes, Ana Rodríguez, André Gonçalves, Andrea Brandão, Angie Antunes, Angie Saiz, Anibal Seraphim, Anna Hints, Anne Burke, Antje Vowinckel, Antonio Della Marina, António Manuel Ramos, António Pedro, Antony Lyons, Bella, Ben Owen, Carmina Escobar, Cédric Anglaret, Charles Stankievech, Chefa Alonso, Christine Niehoff, Christoph Korn, Clare Charnley, Coletivo AMSZ, Coletivo Fora do Tempo, Coletivo GMURDA, Coletivo Somospeces, Coletivo UVBA, Craig Dongoski, Cristina Tascón, Dan Scott, Daniel V. Melim, David Prior, Dennis Bathóry-Kitsz, Diana Policarpo, Duncan Whitley, Émilie Bahuaud, Erva Daninha, Evelyn Müürsepp, Frances Crow, Francisco Janes, Franco Falistoco, Frederik Croene, Gaël Segalen, Helena Espvall, Henry Andersen, Ian Kühling, Ignacio Martínez, Ignaz Schick, Iñaki Ríos, Ingrid Quiroga, Irene Coto, Jakub Krzewinski, James Wyness, Jarosław Urbański, Juan Duarte Regino, Jason Kahn, Jez riley French, Joachim Montessuis, Joana Nascimento, João Farelo, Johanna Hällsten, John Grzinich, Jorge Pascual, Josef Sprinzak, Josefina Fuentes, Judith Sönnicken, Jurate Juralyte, Katherine Liberovskaya, Keiko Uenishi, Klaus Filip, La Xata la Rifa, Lasse-Marc Riek, Lezli Rubin-Kunda, Lilia Mestre, Lisa Premke, Luciana Ohira, Lucrecia Halt, Luís Costa, Maciej Kierzkowski , Madiu Furtado, Maile Colbert, Maksims Shentelevs, Manuela Barile, Mar Roca Macián, Marc Behrens, Maria Idília Martins, Marialuisa Capurso, Marina Oural, Mário Rui Filipe, Marja-Liisa Plats, Marta Bernardes, Martin Clarke, Mary Rothlisberger, Masayo Kajimura, Melanie Velarde, Miguel Carvalhais, Miguel Tavares, Mónica Jorquera, Monique Besten, Myriam Van Imschoot, Nacho Muñoz, Nati Plasencia, Nigel Brown, Niklas Nybom, Nilo Gallego, Noemi Fidalgo, Noid, Oscar de Paz, Pablo Rega, Pali Meursault, Patrícia Azevedo, Patrick McGinley, Patxi Valera, Paulina Miu Zielinska, Paulo Raposo, Pedro Figueiredo, Pedro Tudela, Peeter Laurits, Perri Lynch, Phill Niblock, Pierce Warnecke, Pierre Berthet, Pierre Gauvin, Riccardo Bertan, Rodney Schofield, Rodrigo Malvar, Rogério Nuno Costa, Roi Fernández, Rui Catalão, Rui Costa, Rui Silveira, Ryoko Akama, Satoshi Morita, Sebastian Dingens, Sébastien Piquemal, Sérgio Bonilha, Sérgio Cruz, Sílvia Zayas, Simon Whetham, Sol Rezza, Steve Peters, Stevie Balch, Suzanne Barnard, Suzanne Caines, Svetlana Bogomolova, Tiago Carvalho, Tiina Lapola, Toine Horvers, Toomas Thetloff, Trish Scott, Vered Dror, Viv Corringham, William Lamson, Wolfgang Dorninger, Xabier Erkizia, Xesús Valle, Yannick Guédon, Yasuno Miyauchi.