28th SEP > 30th NOV 2023 AT VIARCO (S.João da Madeira, Portugal)
ARTISTS: ana amarante, Alicia Monreal Ortega, Alkyoni Papakonstantopoulou, Camila Almeida, Carme Ayala, Diana de Brito , Eva Manaridou, Inés Ballesteros, Inês Coelho da Silva, Leah Saraiva, Folie a Deux, Rafael Raposo Pires
Curatorship: Noemi Ferreira
Secar a roupa à chuva (’drying clothes in the rain’) is the culmination of a month of residency of a group of 12 artists in Quinta das Relvas as participants of project SEEDS – means for a sustainable art practice, within the Creative Europe program. Project SEEDS had its start at the beginning of September, with a weekend of conferences featuring speakers such as Linda Weintraub, Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodriguez and Sónia Francisco. These speakers then came to Quinta to facilitate some workshops. The natural force that is Quinta das Relvas – an oasis of plant variety in the midst of a land almost completely made up of eucalyptus monoculture – was the ideal environment to open up the debate on sustainability. With the instructors the artists walked, trained their eye, read, took care of their mind, consciously harvested, learned how to transform natural elements into matter useful to their practice, questioned… Challenged the current way of the world and debated possibilities for the future. An environment of research and sharing emerged during the last weeks that the 12 artists spent together at the studio. The techniques of reusing natural materials coexisted with a constant questioning of the world around them.
Then Autumn came.
It started to rain. It kept raining…
The clothes they had brought in their luggage came to an end and the drawings of ropes began hanging up wherever possible, adorned with what they could wash. And then it rained… Fingers crossed so they would dry; some pieces were sheltered inside in the hopes of having, at least, the essentials available. And the rain stopped. A glimpse of sun was enough for hope to come back. However, the importance of the rain increased, in beauty and amount. We contemplated it.
The clothes took a long while to dry…
The struggle, the frustration and the persistence are subjects that go hand in hand with sustainability. As do caring and loving. Resisting the tide, with hearts full of willingness and above all this vital love, several artistic projects were developed throughout the length of a month. Alicia, ana, Alkyone, Camila, Carme, Diana, Eva, Inés, Inês, Leah, Folie and Rafael took a stand in the same fight: to bind artistic practices with sustainability. A natural and organic union was born in the group, leaving space for each one to express themself in its own language. The result is a visual variety converged in a single organic voice, resulting from the thought of decentralizing humanity in relation to nature. Afterall, is the human world containing nature or is it just a part of it?
Noemi Ferreira
Exhibition sheet: ENfolhadesala_secararoupa_viarco
Photos by Rafael Raposo Pires
