Between the 27th and 29th of April, various activities took place at Mina de S.Domingos that marked the closing of the artistic residency VAGABUNDAS.
On the 27th and 28th there were Open Days for the community, which welcomed the artists Catarina Vieira and Marta Xavier so well, and which had the purpose of showing the work that was possible to develop throughout this month of April.
The meeting point with the public was the Cineteatro, and from here we were taken on a journey, first by the hand of Catarina Vieira, with her performance "Lugar X", ending next to the ruins of the workshops of the mining complex to watch to the presentation by Marta Xavier, with Mina, Mercedes, Marta: um triálogo", which also had the participation of the Grupo Coral da Mina de S. DOmingos, which we are very grateful to generosity.
LUGAR X , Catarina's performance, intends, according to herself, "to reflect on the mechanisms for extracting value from bodies, ecosystems, life, relationships".
Marta Xavier describes Mina, Mercedes, Marta: a triálogue", as "the first act of a narrative that has even now been sown. It intersects music, recitation and drawing, in an almost search for a Mercedes that took me out of my space and socializing out there".
In these three days, an exhibition was held inside the Cineteatro on the research carried out by the two artists in the São Domingos Mine, during this Residency.
On the 29th, we closed with a conversation with the two artists, about the creative process during the residency, moderated by the company's artistic director, Miguel Maia. We also had the presence of António Pacheco, a scholar of the life and work of Mercedes Blasco, the artist who inspires this Residency program, and to whom we are grateful for the much he told us about this actress so unjustly forgotten in the Portuguese cultural scene.
In this conversation, the journey, expectations and future of the VAGABUNDAS project were discussed, and there was a lot of curiosity about how both Catarina and Marta's work would unfold in the coming months, for the presentation to be made in October , this time in Marvila, Lisbon.
Photographs by ©Sónia Godinho (except the photographs of the conversation, by ©Inês Achando)