JUXTAPOSITION
Artist Residency

August 30th to September 12th
Ribolhos (Castro Daire)

With the ceramicist Rita Gomes

An artist residency co-produced by Binaural Nodar and the Municipality of Castro Daire, through its Municipal Library, with the support of the Union of Civil Parishes of Mamouros, Alva, and Ribolhos and co-funded by the Portuguese Republic – Culture, Youth, and Sports | Directorate-General for the Arts and by the European Union, through the Creative Europe program (Tramontana Network project).

For the fifth year, an artist residency is being organized in Ribolhos that takes black clay and the geographic and cultural heritage of the village as a starting point for contemporary expressions about the rural world. After Luís Costa (2020), Nuno Vicente (2022), Ana Margarida Ferreira (2023), and Ana Carucci (2024), this year we welcome the ceramicist Rita Gomes, from the Terracotta studio (Viseu), who has family roots very close to Ribolhos.

Synopsis:

This is a story about our territory told through pieces of ground: clay and granite side by side, juxtaposed.
One material that is molded and another that is found. A dialogue between that which transforms and that which remains.
The small granite rocks collected from the Montemuro mountains, which once were part of walls for pastoral activity, now find a new place.
Juxtaposed with clay, they are incorporated into artistic creations made by the hands of the ceramicist Rita Gomes, herself a daughter of the land (Figueiredo de Alva).
It is the clay that molds itself to the mountain stone and, through fire, crystallizes.
Now, its form only makes sense next to that piece of mountain landscape.
Each piece holds a tension between fragility and resistance, between the delicacy of the surface worked by hand and the raw presence of the stone.
Juxtaposition thus speaks of proximity without fusion. Of distinct materials that coexist and, in meeting, reveal new possibilities.

Biography:

Trained in Architecture in 2010, it was in Ceramics that, 9 years later, Rita Gomes found her vocation.
Her aesthetic language is characterized by organic and minimalist forms, textures, and natural colors.
The ceramicist tirelessly seeks an identity linked to her roots and to the place where she grew up, drawing inspiration from the mountains and landscapes of Beira.
In 2022 she created the brand Terracotta Cerâmica and opened her workshop to the public, in Viseu, providing the local community with a space that invites artistic and creative exploration and the sharing of this age-old knowledge.

Binaural Nodar is a cultural organization supported by the Portuguese Republic – Culture, Youth, and Sports | Directorate-General for the Arts.