ECHOES OF LEAVING AND RETURNING
Artist residency
October 3rd to 15th, 2022
Municipality of Vouzela
With: Anat Handelsman & Avishay Zawoznik (Israel), Niccolò Masini (Italy) and Rafael Bresciani (Brazil/Italy)
Organisation: Binaural Nodar in partnership with the Municipality of Vouzela.
From the end of the 19th century to the present, millions of Portuguese emigrated, looking for alternatives to poverty, to a subsistence economy and/or to the lack of job opportunities. As such, emigration is simultaneously part of the memory and present of the Portuguese rural regions. In each village, multiple thematic layers coexist that relate to the different waves of emigration, those more distant in time, to Brazil, Venezuela, the United States of America, etc. or those more recent, to European countries such as France, Germany, Switzerland or Luxembourg.
In the same way, many rural areas today welcome people from the various continents, in a process opposite to that of so many Portuguese, those who emigrated, those who returned and those who preferred not to return.
However, there is an infinite range of topics that it is possible to delve into when contacting with former and current migrants and their descendants, such as architecture, economics, language, the sense of belonging and cultural insertion of those who emigrated and of their descendants, the perceptions about the evolution of places of destination and origin, the type of connection with the rural world, family narratives and document records, the symbology and the semiotics of affection, gastronomy and many others.
Binaural Nodar, in collaboration with the Municipality of Vouzela, will host the second artist residency of its 16th annual programme of artist residencies in sound and media arts, where three artistic projects will developed and express aspects related to migration processes, both historical and current, existing in the territory of the Municipality of Vouzela.
Anat Handelsman & Avishay Zawoznik (Israel):
Born and raised in Israel, being descendants of immigrants from Brazil and Argentina, both artists experience in their own families and on a daily basis different migration narratives. The artists will develop a sound/visual work with current and former emigrants from the municipality of Vouzela, trying to answer questions such as: Is the search of freedom an inherent factor in the decision to emigrate? Is it possible a broader sense of “migration” beyond territorial change? Could someone emotionally or spiritually “emigrate” without ever leaving their country?
Anat Handelsman is a vocal artist, performer and director, born in 1993 and based in Israel. Her artistic work focuses on a trilogy between art, education and community. Her work touches on personal stories and those of others, including broad concepts such as feminism, environmentalism and identity. She also collaborates with groups such as the Onot Ensemble and the Great Gehenna Choir collective.
Avishay Zawoznik is a sound and media artist, musician, producer and video editor. He presents his electronic music work live and develops sound design for choreographies and audiovisual works. He has been the manager of Israeli vocal artist Noam Enbar, founder of the Great Gehenna Choir and the band HaBiluyim, since 2020.
Niccolò Masini (Italy):
The project proposed by the Italian multidisciplinary artist Niccolò Masini seeks to develop a visual representation that highlights archival conservation methodologies, to trace the visualization of genealogies present in migratory phenomena. Through a methodological analysis of on-site recording and archival materials, the artist will manipulate these elements through a spectrum of different artistic approaches to be applied to existing archives, to systematic archives, to unclassified archives, to new archives, to incomplete archives, to hidden archives, to personal or third-party archives.
Niccolò Masini (b. 1989) is an Italian multidisciplinary artist and researcher, whose recent projects revolve around the questioning of migratory, territorialization and deterritorialization processes and their representation in formal and informal archives. The artist has a degree in Animation and Illustration from the European Institute of Design – Milan (2011), a degree in Audiovisual Arts from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy of Amsterdam (2015) and holds a master’s degree in artistic research and praxis from the DAI / Dutch Art Institut of Arnhem ( 2021). Niccolò Masini’s work develops in the domains of narrative, a certain form of “handcrafted” work, poetry and anthropology.
Rafael Bresciani (Brazil/Italy):
The project proposed by the Italian-Brazilian artist Rafael Besciani starts from his own experience as a descendant of European emigrants (Italian and Portuguese) who decided to live in one of the places of his ancestors, Pietrasanta (Tuscany, Italy), proposing a sound and audiovisual reconstruction of some paths from Portuguese emigration, from each origin to the sea, to the ocean, the border of imagination and hope.
Rafael Bresciani is a sound and media artist who has gained experience in formats ranging from live performance, audio/video/media works, multi and transmedia installations and random and generative systems that control and create art manifestations. All of these practices aim to work in depth on the interaction between sound and other elements of performance art, in order to suggest a poetic vision of the relationship between perception and reality.