TRAMONTANA IN MONTEMURO
International Artist Residency
August 15th to September 12th, 2026
Parada de Ester (Castro Daire)
READY THOUGHT
Nicolò Minisi (Italy)
Ready Thought is based on the sound archive of Binaural Nodar, in the Viseu Dão Lafões region. The work takes the form of a site-specific installation and a one-off artist’s book, and challenges the language barrier between people, treating misunderstanding as a potential generative space from which something new can emerge. The phrases that make up the work arise from listening to the sound archive and are reformulated through assonance: sound is transposed into language, losing its original communicative function and opening up to new possibilities.
The phrases are printed using white acrylic stencils on felt, a material that lends a sculptural dimension to the soundscape. The book is an iron box containing 20 phrases from the ethnographic interviews. In the installation, the felt is cut to follow the perimeter of the site and, once detached, becomes a cast of the site that can be repositioned in other contexts, creating a tension between what is heard and what is read.
The second component of the project is a permanent public sculpture, Sotto (Subsoil): a manual excavation in a mountainous area of the Viseu region, which develops in direct relation to the terrain and to the roots it encounters. Ashes from the 2024 fires are reintroduced into the excavation, in a gesture that plays with restitution, deposition and potential fertilization. The work does not rise into space but extends downward, leaving an open question: what continues to exist beneath the surface?
A co-production of Binaural Nodar and the Municipality of Castro Daire, through the Municipal Library, with the support of the Union of Civil Parishes of Parada de Ester and Ester, within the Tramontana Network project, co-funded by the European Union’s Creative Europe programme.
Binaural Nodar is a cultural organization supported by the Portuguese Republic – Culture, Youth and Sports | Directorate-General for the Arts.
Nicolò Minisi, born in Genoa in 2000 and now based in Milan, is an emerging Italian artist whose practice spans painting and visual arts. He earned both his BA and MA from the Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti (NABA) in Milan, where he graduated with top honors. His work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions across Italy, including the 2025 solo show “Tales from the Underground” in Lecce and group exhibitions such as “Recombinant Ecologies” at Torino’s Parco d’Arte Vivente and “Voicing the Archive” at Triennale Milano. His art explores themes resonant with contemporary ecological and urban concerns, often engaging with site-specific contexts and experimental curatorial projects. He has participated in residency programs like Florìda in Genoa, and his work is held in collections including Studio Florìda, Società Umanitaria and PAV. He has also taken part in workshops and performances, such as those at the Venice Biennale and Fondazione Antonio Ratti.