Wild Côa Symphony, an artist residency in the Greater Côa Valley

June 10, 2022

Over a period of one year, the Greater Côa Valley and its rewilding areas have been receiving an artistic residency, which is nothing less than a journey that covers the entire Côa Valley, and in which the objective will be , at the end of the entire creative process to develop an “impressionist video-sonic poem”, by the artist duo Antony Lyons and Bárbara Carvalho, who won the competition promoted by the Endangered Landscapes Programme.

Over a period of one year, the Greater Côa Valley and its rewilding areas have been receiving an artistic residency, which is nothing less than a journey that covers the entire Côa Valley, and in which the objective will be , at the end of the entire creative process to develop an “impressionist video-sonic poem”, explains the artist duo Antony Lyons and Bárbara Carvalho, who won the competition promoted by the Endangered Landscapes Programme, that challenged artists to think about proposals for several of the landscapes protected by this funding program, which should exactly mirror this conservation work that is being carried out on the ground in an artistic and expressive way.

Here, the work in question “will interlace images, soundscapes, voices and a sound of water data”, being a work “structured by timeless and ephemeral threads, a creative and subjective map of a unique place in constant adaptation and transformation, a valley in transition” they also mention. It will then be shown as a film piece and also through an immersive installation. Rewilding Portugal has been the host organization of this artistic residency as it is responsible on the ground for most of the rewilding actions being carried out at this moment in the landscape, an ecological restoration work that led this duo of artists to have in their project and creative process the reflect on “wild, recovery, freedom, sustenance, sanctuary and coexistence”, all this throughout the four seasons of the year, which shape and modify the various flows, rhythms, atmospheres and plots of this valley.

A true geopoetic odyssey coming to life in the Greater Côa Valley, in which the artists greatly favored the connection of the landscape to the existing watercourses, in an intuitive and constantly exploratory approach, in which more macroscopic perspectives are crossed with other microscopic details, which allow to give the work impressions that are not documented from each location they are passing by. A work that will also bring a new artistic experience, through experimental singing, in which the stories of the water flows in the region will be transmitted, from the rains in Serra da Estrela to the confluence of the Douro River.

Learn more at the website of the artist project or in ELP project website.

The Scaling Up Rewilding in the Greater Côa Valley project is funded by the Endangered Landscapes Programme, which is managed by the Cambridge Conservation Initiative and funded by Arcadia, a charity fund run by Peter Baldwin and Lisbet Rausing. Rewilding Portugal has its partners in this project: Rewilding Europe, ATNatureza, University of Aveiro and Zoo Logical.

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