THE THIRD RIVER
An imaginary journey between distant waters
A creative project by Luís Costa
9th – 20th December 2024
Studio Florìda (Genoa, Italy)
A co-production of Studio Florìda, Binaural Nodar, with the support of the Department of Communication and Art of the University of Aveiro.
“Brother, forgive me for disturbing you, but I’ve come to ask you to teach me once again the correct way to walk on the surface of the water, as I have trouble remembering it.”
Adapted from a Sufi legend in ‘Tales of the Dervishes, Teaching-stories of the Sufi Masters’.
“Because I see myself as a being “between places”, I often imagine that I can jump, walk or be quickly transported between the contexts in which my loved ones live.”
Luís Costa
The artistic project “The third river: an imaginary journey between distant waters” explores the role of artistic research in addressing certain complexities of the current global/local dialectic, focusing on the memory of river contexts, in the wake of a multidisciplinary artistic research that uses orality, historical and geographical information, soundscapes and religious texts about water to reflect on the psychosocial impact of rivers and streams in some communities in two different regions: the municipality of Genoa (Liguria, Italy) and the municipality of Castro Daire (Viseu Dão Lafões, Portugal).
The resulting installation seeks to challenge ultra-localist narratives, proposing an “imagination of the link” and also an expression of objectively shared aspects between geographically distant but culturally connected contexts. This project thus illustrates how artistic practice can foster interlocalist dialog, providing a multidisciplinary framework for exploring the commonalities between different landscapes and potentially enriching the cultural perspectives of the compared regions.
Binaural Nodar is an organization supported by the Portuguese Republic – Culture | Directorate-General for the Arts.