Book with 176 color pages
Autor: Ana Rodríguez
Catalog Number: Edições Nodar, nodar.030
ISBN: 978-989-99856-7-4

The Uruguayan anthropologist Ana Rodríguez has been working with memory, sound and orality in rural contexts, namely through her project Mapa sonoro de Uruguay (Sound map of Uruguay), and one of the focuses of her intervention is traditional practices linked to individual and community health and care, which have been transformed over time and still exist in rural areas of countries such as Portugal and Uruguay. During artist residencies held in Várzea de Calde (Viseu) and Northern Uruguay in 2020 and 2022, an inquiry was made into these permanences and how they are currently signified by the beneficiaries of these practices. In these processes, which can help to restore health, some plants are involved, as well as narratives passed down orally over generations of people who have lived or still live in the rural world.

As a result of the research, the exhibition “Echoes of the Gift” was created and will be on display at the Várzea de Calde Linen Museum until the end of February 2025.

On January 25th, a bilingual book (Portuguese and Spanish) was presented to the local community entitled “Echoes of the Gift: ‘Traditional community health practices in rural areas of Portugal and Uruguay’, which brings together eleven texts by Ana Rodríguez related to her research, as well as photographic and sound essays, giving the publication the status of an expanded book.

The book is bilingual, in Portuguese and Spanish, has 176 pages and dozens of color photographs. It costs 20 euros and is on sale at the Várzea de Calde Linen Museum. Interested parties can also buy it to be sent by post by sending an email to info@binauralmedia.org.

Ana Rodríguez was born in Montevideo and has been living and researching in rural contexts since 2001, when she settled in Tacuarembó, in the north of Uruguay. She graduated as an anthropologist from the University of the Republic of Uruguay. She studied for a master’s degree in Theory and Practice of Creative Documentary at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. She was part of the teaching team at the Nucleus of Rural Studies (Tacuarembó headquarters of the University of the Republic of Uruguay) and between 2016 and 2018 she created audiovisual teaching materials on gender and rurality for the Faculty of Agronomy of Uruguay (2016), created the Sound Map of Uruguay (2016), and is currently an artist who develops creative projects in Uruguay in Portugal, many of them in partnership with Binaural Nodar (Echoes of Leaving and Returning, Radioballo, Plantas Faladas, Lecho, etc. etc.).