THE THIRD RIVER
An imaginary journey between distant waters
A creation by Luis Gomes da Costa
“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, because I have trouble remembering it.”
Adapted from a Sufi legend in ‘Tales of the Dervishes. Teaching-stories of the Sufi Masters’.
The final video of the creation “The Third River” developed during the month of December 2024 in Genoa is presented.
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 poetic texts about water, to reflect on the psychosocial impact of rivers and streams on communities in two different regions: the Torrente Bisagno watershed in the province of Genoa (Liguria, Italy) and the Paiva river valley in the Portuguese region of Viseu Dão Lafões.
This project is structured to problematize artistic methods and practices that foster an interlocal dialogue, providing a multidisciplinary framework for exploring the commonalities between different landscapes and communities.
The resulting work 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 is a co-production by Binaural Nodar and Studio Florìda (Genoa), with the mediation collaboration of the Amici Di Pontecarrega Association (Genoa) and scientific support from the Department of Communication and Art at the University of Aveiro and the Caldas da Rainha School of Arts and Design.
Binaural Nodar is a cultural organization supported by the Portuguese Republic – Culture | Directorate-General for the Arts.