ARTS AND EDUCATION SERVICE, MUSEU DO DOURO
Can we, in a talk, share possibilities, failures and hypotheses rather than findings, for ‘dissonant’ practices?
I am landscape: the foundation for this action is the research and creation of experiential relationships between people and landscapes. The research addresses concepts to discuss, such as territory and landscape, body and place, establishing a dialogue and a tension between different modes of expression, discourses and politics. 'How can our research practices decentralise binary ways of dealing within the landscape, challenging the singular plural as condition of life, as defined by Hannah Arendt'?
This work aims to contribute to complexify the discussion about art education practices in close relation to landscape and arts (performing arts, in particular). Both landscape and participants are challenged with resort to theatre, dance, video, animation, writing and biology, geography, anthropology and literature, landscape design and cinema, engineering and drawing, photography and sound design.
I am landscape holds a clear and unequivocal willingness, and the invitation to think and act upon education in the differentiated places of the territory.
In a territory where power and bondage are such an obvious part of the landscape, we want to aim and instruct our enquiry towards those small big things that could act as magnifying glass: in the Douro Valley, it is not uncommon to talk about the secrets of wine, grape varieties and soil, but amidst those local secrets we want to talk too of lovers; of voices and particular accents; of apples; of video recordings; of daisies (she loves me, she loves me not); of cherries; of dancing; of oranges; of loves; of names; of theatre; of red poppies; of lands; of the names of lands; of plants growing on riverbanks; of songs, of the lyrics of songs; of the secrets contained in the lyrics of songs; of cinema; of breeding; of poplars; of bodies; of body parts; of chestnut trees; of ash trees; of poetry; of rivers; of tributary rivers; of philosophy; of olive trees; of partners; of power; of hierarchy in the landscape and in human relationships; of secrets as a currency of power.
Art educator since 1993; contemporary art and culture teacher in the theatre department of ESMAE, Porto (higher education performing arts school of Politécnico do Porto) since 2002 on BA and MA courses; Head of education department of the Fundação Museu do Douro since 2006 (I am landscape arts and education programme for Douro Territory museum won the 2015 APOM-Portuguese Association for Museology prize for best Portuguese museum education programme). Former Head of education department of the Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto (1999-2002) and as invited teacher at European Studies Institute of Macau, China (1999, 2000). As an art educator, works for theatre companies, festivals, etc. PhD in Arts Education (2016) at the Faculdade de Belas Artes, Universidade do Porto; MA in Art History at the Faculdade de Letras, Universidade do Porto (FLUP) (1998); Further Education and BA in Art History at FLUP (1992). Main interests: questioning mediation in its ontological colonial status, its caucasian practices and discourses | independent editions (fanzines).