Art(e)facts'21: Supernatural Togetherness

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To weave a script, Janeiro de Cima (Fundão)
Andrea Canepa & Vanessa Foster + Casa das Tecedeiras, with the collaboration of the artisans Sónia Latado and Rosa Pereira

Enxertos Húmidos; Para o fim do conceito de Natureza (“Wet Grafts; For the end of the concept of Nature”), Telhado (Fundão)
Nuno Vicente + Casa do Barro, with the collaboration of the artisan Cátia Pires

The Baskets, Famalicão da Serra (Guarda)
Studio Lapatsch|Unger + Oficina Joaquim & Irene Venâncio

A união faz a força (“Unity is strenght”), Gonçalo (Guarda)
Fernanda Fragateiro + Oficina Alberto Carvalhinho

Construir em Cesta (“Built in Basket”), Alcongosta (Fundão)
Diogo Rodrigues, Fernando Pimenta and João Oliveira + Oficina António & Lurdes Nunes dos Santos

O Octógono (“The Octagon”), Fundão
Colectivo Warehouse + FAB LAB Aldeias do Xisto, with the collaboration of the technicians João Milheiro, Edgar Graça, Nuno Alves and Sérgio Forte

Alcongosta, Janeiro de Cima, Telhado, Fundão, Famalicão da Serra and Gonçalo are the localities that in the month of May hosted the first artist residency programme of Art(e)facts, and that now trace the itinerary of the exhibition that shows the artistic projects produced. As Andreia Garcia, the Artistic Director and Curator of the Biennale, enlightens, the exhibition is a “mirror of several dialogues and of the scenarios that hosted the projects. The invitation to this visit suggests, therefore, paying attention to the places that hold memory and the experience of immersion and permanence”.

The residencies and the creation of the artistic projects gathered six artists and art collectives, Portuguese and foreign, with local artisans who work the traditional crafts of wickerwork basketry, chestnut wickerwork, linen weaving, and pottery. In addition to valuing crafts through contemporary creation, the Biennale proposed to the participants the application of digital fabrication and of the resources available on the FAB LAB Aldeias do Xisto to the preservation of knowledge and know-how of the people of Beira Interior. This because, as the curator points out, “with globalization, rural areas have become outskirts of cities and we now see that, with the aging of the population, the legacy of ancestral knowledge is in danger”.

The exhibition will be open until September 9th and the projects can be visited in installations in the craft workshops that hosted the residencies, and in vacant and public spaces in the various localities. From Casa das Tecedeiras, in the historic village of Janeiro de Cima, passing by Casa do Barro do Telhado and workshops in Famalicão da Serra and Gonçalo, where ancestral crafts are kept alive, to the centres of the village of Alcongosta and the city of Fundão, the exhibition defines an itinerary between the past and the future of the region o Beira Interior in Portugal.

“We need imaginaries that instigate all generations to think about a more liveable planet, right now”, Andreia Garcia appeal’s to frame the theme of the Biennale and of the exhibition – Supernatural Togetherness –, which proposes alliances between humans, generations, species, and knowledge in order to save the future. “The dominant imaginary that arises from air pollution, climate change or the COVID-19 pandemic, imagines and conceives a world in which nature must be protected from human action. However, the human condition cannot be separated from nature because it is an intrinsic part of the same socio-ecological metabolism”, the curator explains.

Art(e)facts combines art, crafts, and ecology to encourage collaborations between artists and artisans and to create a contemporary legacy of artworks that value the territories of Beira Interior and the reinterpretation of its traditional knowledge. The Biennial’s programme, on-going between February and September 2021, involved an international call for projects that were produced in the residencies and will be presented in the group show.

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