The artistic residency “Listening to Rural Youth” took place between June 30 and July 12 in Várzea de Calde, promoted by Binaural Nodar with the support of the Municipality of Viseu, the Parish Council of Calde, and the Italian artistic space Studio Florìda. This initiative was part of the European Tramontana project, a network of cultural structures operating in a mountain context, co-financed by the Creative Europe program.
For two weeks, artists Adriana Lopes (Portugal), Leele Jürjen (Estonia), Luís Costa (Portugal), and Sanae Mazouz (Morocco/Italy) developed artistic projects that reflected on the relationships between youth and rural contexts. The proposals were based on themes such as child and youth sociability in rural areas, the impact of social transformations in villages, and the regenerative potential of contact with nature and traditions.
The residency ended on July 12 with a public presentation of the artistic processes developed, in a moment of sharing between the artists, the local community, and partner entities.
Her academic training in Anthropology allowed Adriana Lopes to experiment with the ethnographic method in multimodality, articulating it with artistic practices. The artist adopts encounter as a premise for knowledge and maps her body-archive in motion and in relation to found objects, in order to think, handle, and reflect on the world. Delving deeper into the ontology of theater praxis, she reflects on the problematic nature of representation in vehicles of expression. Specializing in Visual Anthropology, the 26-year-old artist used ethnographic methods in conjunction with photography, drawing, and installation, transforming the encounter with the community into a way of reflecting on the world. The final result provided a sensitive reading of the relationships between memory, creativity, and youth in rural areas.