CANALS OF WATER AND ALIMENTATION
Artist Residency
With Luís Costa
From February 26th to March 10th, 2025
Agro Pontino, province of Latina (Lazio, Italy)
An organization of Binaural Nodar in collaboration with the Eco Museo dell’Agro Pontino (Lazio, Italy) in the context of Creative Europe Tramontana project and in collaboration with ID+ and LiDA Research Centers.
Binaural Nodar will be promoting the artist residency ” Canals of Water and Alimentation”, by Luís Costa, as part of the Creative Europe Tramontana project. This initiative will take place in the territory of Agro Pontino, in the Italian region of Lazio, and will explore the relationship between water supply systems for agriculture, through the languages of sound art and experimental video.
The aim of the residency is to establish a dialog between different forms of water management used in European agricultural contexts, highlighting the historical, anthropological and ecological dynamics associated with each one.
One of the systems to be addressed concerns water management in Agro Pontino, where large infrastructures of canals and dikes were implemented during the Italian fascist period. This irrigation model transformed swamps into fertile land, allowing for the expansion of large-scale agriculture. The use of mechanized and centralized water distribution systems reflects an industrial and technological approach, in which state intervention and engineering play a crucial role in landscape conversion and agricultural productivity.
In contrast, the residency will also look at the artisanal irrigation systems found in the Gralheira Mountain Range in São Pedro do Sul, Portugal. Here, water distribution is based on a community system, in which local families have irrigation rights allocated by the time of day. Small earth or stone canals allow water to flow from the springs to the fields, with farmers managing the water manually by blocking and opening the canals as the families need them. This model shows a more direct and sustainable relationship with water resources, adapted to the geomorphological conditions of the region.
Comparing these two irrigation systems provides a deeper understanding of the different agricultural models in southern Europe. While the Agro Pontino system is associated with a latifundium logic, with large-scale production and strong technological intervention, the Gralheira mountain range model represents the smallholding tradition, based on community management of resources and adaptation to natural conditions.
The artist residency ” Canals of Water and Alimentation” thus seeks to highlight these contrasting dynamics, promoting a reflection, through contemporary artistic practice, on the ecological, economic and cultural impacts of different forms of water management in European agriculture.
This artist residency is also part of the author’s research in the context of the Doctoral Program in Artistic Creation, with the support of the Department of Communication and Art at the University of Aveiro (ID+ research center) and ESAD Caldas da Rainha (LiDA research center).
Luís Costa (1968). Curator of contemporary artistic practices, sound researcher, educator and cultural animator in a rural context. He is a PhD researcher in the context of the Doctoral Program in Artistic Creation at the University of Aveiro. President of Binaural Nodar since 2006. Coordinator of Lafões Cult Lab, an artistic research concept in the territory of Viseu Dão Lafões which has already hosted more than 200 artists and social researchers. Coordinator of the Binaural Nodar Digital Archive, a research, cataloging and sound and audiovisual mapping project of the collective memory of rural territories. He is the author of 13 books on rural ethnography and contemporary artistic practices in rural contexts.