A crack in the landscape

In a world where places are increasingly the stage for “experiences”, authentic fleeting moments of enthusiasm, it is interesting to develop a counterpoint reflection that could make us reflect/feel about the paths of the history of communities that led to the way we see and feel the transformed landscape today.

For example, what can an old tungsten mine tell us? Does the stony beauty remind us of or forget us the miners who dug these rocks day by day? Can the beams of light that enter the mine at certain times be felt from a transcendent point of view, as a heavenly tribute to those who perished here?

“A crack in the landscape” is an audiovisual poem by Luís Costa that was born spontaneously, from the daily presence in the old mine of Queiriga (Vila Nova de Paiva), during the artist residency “Echoes of Leaving and Returning” organized by Binaural Nodar between June 26th and July 8th, 2023.

Luís Costa (1968). Curator of contemporary artistic practices, researcher and sound artist, educator and cultural animator in a rural areas, in the context of Binaural Nodar. Coordinator of Lafões Cult Lab, a multimedia artistic research concept in the territory of Viseu Dão Lafões which has already hosted more than 150 sound/media artists, social and environmental researchers from more than 20 countries. Coordinator of the Binaural Nodar Digital Archive, a research, cataloging and sound and audiovisual mapping project of the collective memory of the rural territories where Binaural Nodar works. In 2011, he co-edited the catalog and double CD “Three Years in Nodar: Context-specific artistic practices in rural Portugal”, edited in 2017 the book + documentary “Várzea de Calde: a village woven in linen” and in 2023 the book “Dancing with the root: Documenting the memory of folklore groups from Castro Daire”. Luís Costa is also the author of two books + CD created as a result of sound education projects: “Sound Memory of Cork” with the participation of children from primary schools in the municipality of Santa Maria da Feira, together with companies and workers from the cork sector and “São Pedro do Sul: New Rural Listenings” based on recordings made by youths in rural villages from the municipality of São Pedro do Sul.