Compasses – walking communities

The Walking Body (TWB) designates a set of walkshops (international projects and workshops) held in the city of Guimarães, by the School of Architecture, Art and Design (EAAD) from the University of Minho and the Laboratory of Landscape, Heritage and Territory (Lab2PT), in collaboration with Made of Walking/the Milena principle, focused on the act of “Walking as artistic practice”, exploring imagination and creativity.

TWB3 has essentially a creative and artistic character, whose performance methodology rehearses forms of coexistence between different publics through its performance in public space. It is intended for artists who have developed practices related to the theme, for a young public, through the direct involvement of students of higher artistic education, and for any interested person, allowing a broad and diversified public participation.

The Walking Body 4 will take place between 13 and 17 March 2023, focusing on the Garagem Avenida building, expanding throughout Bairro C in Guimarães. It is supported by LAB2PT.

PROGRAM

The Walking Body 4 (TWB4) is an international gathering of walking artists.
It will take place between March 13rd and 17th, 2023, in Guimarães, at Bairro C, with the meeting point at the art gallery Garagem Avenida/EAAD.
The Walking Body 4 includes a week of workshops and a presentation of the work of the participating artists, in the art gallery Garagem Avenida/EAAD (Av. Dom Afonso Henriques 250, Guimarães).
Walkshops take place at Bairro C and start at the meeting point and are held by invited national and international artists, between March 13 and 17, 2023. These workshops are free and open to anyone by registration via the form below:
https://forms.gle/z8ca8isqf4nfpPH96

For more information check the calendar at:
www.facebook.com/The-Walking-Body-2149089701777607

The TWB4 program and activity presentation will be held on March 13, 2023 at 5pm at the art gallery Garagem Avenida/EAAD (Av. Dom Afonso Henriques 250) is free and open to anyone interested in art and the act of walking. The presentation will be introducing the theme of the meeting and the TWB4 week activities.

Speakers at TWB4 are the artists: Ana Moya (ES), Angeliki Avgitidou (GR), Geert Vermeire (BE), Laís França (BR), Matteo Bonfitto (BR), Manuela Ferreira (PT), Miguel Duarte (PT), Natacha Antão (PT), Rachel Merlino (BR) e Tiago Porteiro (PT).

This project is organized by Lab2PT, in partnership with the School of Architecture, Art and Design, and has the institutional support of the University of Minho. The Greek professor and artist Angeliki Avgitidou will be present thanks to Erasmus+ faculty mobility support. Geert Vermeire’s participation was supported with a travel grant from the Flemish Ministry of Culture, Belgium. This project is member at New European Bauhaus network.

This event is free and open to the participation of any person, student, artist, interested or curious. Anyone under the age of 14 must be accompanied by a responsible adult.

The Walking Body art project and walkshops have been developed since October 2018 and are organized by Geert Vermeire (Made of Walking/walk · listen · create), Miguel Bandeira Duarte (EAAD/Lab2PT) and Natacha Antão Moutinho (EAAD/Lab2PT).
TWB invites artists, students, interested parties and the inhabitants of the city of Guimarães to interact with the territory and walk together, inspired by in situ walkshops with creators.

Geert Vermeire — March 13 9:30am

Earth Alphabet for Peace, collaborative writing on the city

Be part of the experimental collective writing for peace on a shared map. This practice is will show how we can use maps to express our desire for a better world. It introduces a new way to see maps and to discover the potential of locative media. The practice is followed by a walk with your map and a discussion about location based storytelling in the city.

Participants nr.: no limit
Duration: 2 – 3 hours (day 1) + 1 hour (day 5 – discussion)
Materials: Laptop needed, smartphone with headphones recommended.
Meeting point: Art gallery Garagem Avenida
Meeting time: 9h30 am

Natacha Antão — March 13 to16 2:30pm

Fragments and treasures. Stories woven and shared in the geography of a place

Conducting an exploratory cartography using technical weaving principles. Participants are invited to construct part of a tapestry that aggregates fragments of stories that compose a disruptive and non-geometric map of the streets and places visited, of the houses and family paths, of the contemporary world and its complexities, of invasive species and shared discoveries.
This work counts with the technical support and emotional support of Mónica Faria and Joana Cunha.

There is no limit to the number of participants. As it is about the construction of a single piece, only one person at a time may be in the loom.
Duration: continuous, concurrent with the opening of the space.
Materials: loom, yarn and various elements brought by the participants
Meeting point: Garagem Avenida Art Gallery
Meeting time: concurrent with the opening of the space

Ana Moya — March 14 10:00am

Methodological aspects of participatory artistic research

Sharing experiences and knowledge about the logistical and methodological aspects of an artistic research based on participatory and interdisciplinary studies of the urban landscape and its heritage in the Postdoctoral project “The Multicultural Somatic Urban Landscape” (2016-21) (www.somaticlandscape.com), at the Centre of Art History and Artistic Research (CHAIA, U. Évora) and financed by FCT and the European Social Fund.

Participants nr: room lotation
Duration: 2hours
Materials: 
Meeting point: Galeria Garagem Avenida
Meeting time: 10:00 am

Miguel B Duarte — March 14 1:00pm

Round / Ronda

Ronda is a 20km long walk on the Santa Catarina Mountain (Penha). It begins and ends at the Avenida Garage Gallery, passing symbolically at the Lapinha Sanctuary, in Calvos, Guimarães.

The experience, not intending to mimic the actual pilgrinage and the clamor of the Senhora da Lapinha that takes place in mid-June in the territory of Guimarães, seeks to inscribe in space and body a walk simultaneously collective and individual. From self-perception of the performance to the creation of motor images that include sharing with the other, Ronda proposes a contribution to the development of the aesthetic dimension in Motor Imagination.

Participants nr: 30~45 max
Duration: 5H min
Materials: Water and pocket fruit
Meeting point: Galeria Garagem Avenida
Meeting time: 1:00 pm

 

Angeliki Avgitidou — March 15 9:30am

Occupied City

In the workshop we will negotiate the relationship that develops between the body and the space of the city, through performance and photography. Specifically, we will explore the concepts of integration, difference and disappearance in connection with the elements of space and play. Participants will be working in small groups with at least one photographic means between them. We will start with a preparatory workshop indoors and continue our exploration of the city. We will then share our results with the rest of the group. No previous experience in performance is necessary. Come with a desire for experimentation and a smile!

Participants nr. 20
Duration: about 4 hours (2 indoors, 2 outdoors).
Materials: smartphone or photographic camera for 1 in a 4 people group
Meeting point: Garagem Avenida Art Gallery
Meeting time: 9:30am

Ana Moya — March 15 3:00pm

The place in my body – being a place

Performance in the public spaces of Guimarães Historic Center. It will involve body movement work, drift, space cartography and collaborative dialogues with city residents. We will replicate a performative and participatory exercise carried out at Raval neighbourhood (Barcelona) in the project “Bondings in Movement” (2022) (Youtube @vinclesenmoviment). In this workshop, readapted to the Guimarães case study, we will work on site-specific body movement, performance, plastic arts, oral expression, and participatory bonding dynamics. We will establish bonds of intimacy with each other in order to be dressed as a “place”. We will share, through dialogue and performative action, places that speak about ourselves and the others’ lived personal experiences. In this workshop we will work on sharing memories about urban places that remain in our bodies for some reason despite the passage of time.

Participants nr.: 15
Duration: 2 hours
Materials: Go dressed in dark and comfortable clothes. Footwear for walking.
Bring pencils and markers to draw and a sketchbook.
Meeting point: Garagem Avenida Art Gallery
Meeting time: 3:00pm

T. Porteiro | M. Bonfitto | M. Ferreira — March 16 10:00am

Dis-pla-ce-us

From the notion of “paradoxical atmospheres” we will invite the participants to follow a pre-defined path that crosses different contexts and realities of the city of Guimarães. Walkers will thus be invited to investigate modes of subjectivation that go beyond internal/external, public/private, objective/subjective dualities. During the journey, different configurations of groups: collective, pairs or trios and individuals will be experienced. The walk ends with a sharing of the different types of records produced by the participants.

Participants nr: 22
Duration: 2h30m
Materials: pen, pencil
Meeting point: Azurém University Campus
Meeting time: 10:00am

Aknowledgments

Restaurante Cor de Tangerina / Liliana Duarte e Álvaro Dinis Mendes
Biblioteca Raul Brandão
Centro de Solidariedade Humana Professor Emídio Guerreiro / António Matos
Santa Casa da Misericordia de Guimarães

Rachel Merlino | Laís França — March 16 2:00pm

Territory, memory and identity: Naming paths along the way.

An activity of collective reflection and debate about the personal narratives that surround the urban spatialities through the paths we walk – articulating between the city’s subjectivity and a sentimental cartography.

Goals:
– Reflect on the sense of identity present in the participants, the territory and the group in the territory.
– Organize a cartography guided by the experiences and memories of the participants in these spaces (collective/subjective diagnosis for future creations)

Activity’s details:
1-Warm up / Meeting the group to understand the individual stories of each one and start building identity as a collective. (Are they all students? Are they residents? Do they live or study in the context of the event? What was their first contact with the territory, etc)
2- Designate 3 words that describe that space for each one. (Write down individually.)
3- They share the words with the group, assigning them to a location on the cartography.
4- Development of the first part of the cartography through a web of their impressions.
5- “Field work” to reflect on the group debates individually to think of paths that describe those words/sensations well. (30-40min)
6- Group meets again and review the words, interact with the words of each one, describe the paths (re)presenting themselves through them. – Create connection between identity and city.
7- Development of the second part of the cartography – post-walk impressions. – What routes did you define? Do they confirm first impressions? Any sort of identification among the participants? (whether by path or sensation?)
8- Space for debate throughout the creation of the cartography.
9- Final result – Cartography process.

Participants nr. 10 – 25
Duration: 2 hours (14h – 16h)
Materials:
– Printed map A0 of the context of the workshop – define excerpt from the map
– Material to doodle/write on paper (markers, markers, colored pencils, etc.)
– Ream of Paper to write the words
– Scissors
– Thick colored sewing threads (at least 5 colors)
– Boxes with Pins
– Sticky tape
Meeting point: Garagem Avenida Art Gallery
Meeting time: 4:00pm

The Round Table / presentation of The Walking Body + 7 artists is scheduled for March 13, 2023, at 5pm, in the Garage Gallery Avenida EAAD (Av. Dom Afonso Henriques 250, Guimarães).

It is open to everyone interested in art and the act of walking, exploring the theme of the meeting and presenting the activities of the TWB3 week.
The moderators of the table are Geert Vermeire (BE), Natacha Antão (PT), Miguel Duarte (PT).
This event is free of charge and open to participation to any person, student, artist, interested or curious – registration in form: https://forms.gle/z8ca8isqf4nfpPH96

Date
5 PM, Monday, March 13, 2023

Venue
at EAAD Garage Gallery (Av. Dom Afonso Henriques 250, Guimarães

Ana Moya (Spain)

Ana Moya is a principal researcher at the Centre of Art History and Artistic Research (CHAIA), University of Évora (Portugal). She holds experience as an architect practitioner, lecturer and scholar in humanistic landscape studies under an intercultural, heritage and transdisciplinary artistic approach, with experience in community and participatory relational art practices involving body-world phenomenological studies, site-specific explorations and experimental cartographies.

Angeliki Avgitidou (Greece)

Angeliki Avgitidou is an artist working in performance and public space. She studied as an architect (BArch Hons, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) and an artist (MA, PhD, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design). Her work has been shown in occasions that include the Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, its Performance Festival, the International Biennial of Performance Deformes, the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space and the 15th International Exhibition of Architecture of the Biennale of Venice. Angeliki is the author of “Performance art: Education and practice” (Routledge, 2023). She is Associate Professor at the School of Fine Arts of the University of Western Macedonia. She has also taught postgraduate courses in the same university, the Hellenic Open University and the Transart Institute.

Geert Vermeire (Belgium)

Curator, artist and writer, working and living between Greece, Portugal and Belgium, with as main field an artistic practice focused on the performative, mixed reality and social practices, with as key elements the body in public space, community involvement and ethical involvement. His writing activity meets with immersive formats of artist creation and extends to interdisciplinary and artistic research, involving walking and collaborations with choreographers, sound artists, new media artists, architects and other writers.

Laís França (Brasil)

Laís França has a degree in Management and a postgraduate degree in Economics and Sustainability at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, and a Master’s in Risks, Cities and Spatial Planning at Universidade do Porto. During her academic career, she continued to focus her research on culture and art as tool for territorial development, housing and immigration.
With Rachel Merlino, they are a duo of Brazilian creators and artists who articulate reflections around collective participation, culture, artistic practices and territorial development. They are currently developing (DES)ORIENTE. A project based on insurgent practices to develop an exhibition in public space, with the support of Criatório 2022, Câmara Municipal do Porto.

Matteo Bonfitto (Brasil)

Matteo Bonfitto is an actor-performer, theater director, writer and researcher. Graduated from DAMS, University of Bologna and Royal Holloway University of London (PhD), he also carried out research at CUNY, Freie Universität, Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle and INSR in Florence. He is the author of several articles and books on the processes of the actor-performer and his artistic trajectory includes shows and performances presented, in Brazil, Chile, France, Italy, Germany, United States, Colombia, Scotland, Ecuador and Cuba. He is the artistic director of Núcleo PERFORMA (www.performateatro.org).

Miguel Duarte (Portugal)

Assistant Professor at the School of Architecture, Art and Design, University of Minho. He is a research member of Lab2PT – Laboratory of Landscape, Heritage and Territory. He has a degree in Communication Design (FBAUP/1994) and a PhD in Fine Arts: Drawing (FBAUL/2016).
As a Walking Art researcher he co-organizes the conference Drifting Bodies Fluent Spaces (2020) and The Walking Body workshops (2018/2020/2022/2023). He was Director of Museu Nogueira da Silva (2015-2022).He was editor of PSIAX magazine, and coordinator of Estudio UM (estudioum.org). Develops the multidisciplinary research project Cultural Geographies of Music, Sound and Silence

Natacha Antão (Portugal)

Natacha Antão is an artist, researcher integrated in Lab2PT (Landscape, Heritage and Territory Lab) and assistant professor at the School of Architecture, Art and Design of the University of Minho (EAAD), where she teaches since 2006. She is editor of PSIAX, a journal active since 2002, publishing studies and reflections on drawing and image. Her most recent interests focus on artistic and research practices through walking, developing since 2018 the experimental laboratory The Walking Body (+info at https://walk.lab2pt.net), and investigates the impact of the practice of walking in pedagogical and artistic innovation.

Rachel Merlino (Brasil)

Rachel Merlino has a degree in Architecture and Urbanism at Universidade Federal Fluminense, Rio de Janeiro, and a Master’s in Art Studies at Universidade do Porto. During her academic career, she dedicated herself to study gender representations in museum and public spaces, and urban routes as curatorial devices for representing and reading the city.

With Laís França, they are a duo of Brazilian creators and artists who articulate reflections around collective participation, culture, artistic practices and territorial development. They are currently developing (DES)ORIENTE. A project based on insurgent practices to develop an exhibition in public space, with the support of Criatório 2022, Câmara Municipal do Porto.

 

Tiago Porteiro (Portugal)

Tiago Porteiro (MA and Ph.D at the Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris III) is currently Assistant Professor at BA of theater at the Universidade do Minho, Portugal (2014). Previously he was Assistant Professor at the Department of Theatre Studies of the Universidade de Évora (1996).
His trajectory articulates academic activities, pedagogy and artistic creation.
The research interests (member of Centro de Estudos Humanísticos da Universidade do Minho/GIEP) include the training of actors, acting, site specific art projects, participatory theatre, documentation of creative processes.

Compasses – walking communities

Compasses, interplaying with double meanings of the English word for the handheld device pointing the north for a walker and the original Portuguese word “compassar”, signifying pacing, and walking communities are terms related to the philosophy and practice of popular education developed by Paulo Freire.

The term “pacing” is used by Freire to refer to the process of adapting a teaching or pedagogical action to the needs, interests, and realities of the students or participants. Pacing means to be in tune with the rhythm and trajectory of the students or participants, taking into account their experiences, previous knowledge, cultures, and perspectives. For Freire, education should be dialogical and horizontal, rather than imposing and vertical, and pacing is a key element of this approach.

Walking communities, on the other hand, are groups of people who unite around a common goal or cause, and who together walk toward social transformation, their symbolical North. These communities are characterized by a critical view of reality, political involvement, and collective action. For Freire, the walking communities are spaces for mutual learning, where people can exchange experiences, knowledge, and reflections, and build a process of awareness and mobilization. The walking communities are an example of popular education in action, because they allow people to be protagonists of their own history and fight for a more just and egalitarian society.