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à escuta
À escuta (listening) is an artistic collective that works (mostly) within the territories of the Serra da Estrela Natural Park (PT), proposing an inter/transdisciplinary reflection on the past, present and future of these territories. Intimately connected with a notion of ‘listening’ as a resonant relation with the ‘other’, its artistic projects involve local communities, collaborators from different scientific areas, local civic movements and artists.
Since its formation in 2020 by Joana Sá and Luís J Martins, the collective – now with Corinna Lawrenz, Lucas Tavares and Ana Viana - has had an intense activity:
- in 2020-21 the project ‘Poetic Catalogue’ was developed in the tiny and beautiful village of Frádigas (Vide, Seia). It sought to reflect about the global scale phenomena of climate change and environmental problems, through the local scale of concrete and tangible relations established with the territory. The project had a final presentation in the village of Frádigas in a four-day festival with numerous presentations and activities - performances, installations, meetings, interpretative tours, an assembly with the community, a workshop, and a little market with local farmers and producers. For more information, see à escuta: catálogo poético.
- between 2022 and 2023 the project CasaFloresta, based on a deactivated forest ranger's house near Balocas, sought to reflect multiple voices on what “guarding a forest” could mean today. This project was developed in two territories in the Serra da Estrela – the Parish of Vide e Cabeça in the south, and the Parish of Figueiró da Serra in the north. Its outputs – a performance, an installation, and an assembly - were presented both in urban theaters such as TBA-Teatro do Bairro Alto in Lisbon, Convento de São Francisco in Coimbra and Casa da Cultura in Seia, and in unconventional venues in the territories where they were developed – Casa da Guarda dos Covões in Balocas and Salão de Figueiró da Serra. For more information, see à escuta: CasaFloresta.
- in 2023 and 2024 the project Folha Volante (Leaf-flyer) was developed in the municipality of Gouveia (Serra da Estrela) and in the municipality of Borba (Alentejo) commissioned by TNDMII - D. Maria II National Theatre. Continuing to work with the communities and collaborators on the relationships with the 'forest', for its final presentation the collective created an artistic outsized format – a performance-assembly-installation -, as well as a ‘physical’ Folha Volante (‘Leaf- flyer’), a small publication outlining a diagnostic of the territory through the multiple voices of its communities along with contributions brought by the collective. For more information, see à escuta: Folha Volante.
Currently, the collective is creating the book CasaFloresta: working on the countless materials (field recordings, contributions from collaborators, artistic outputs, etc.) of the projects CasaFloresta and Folha Volante. à escuta is creating a larger publication: a polyphonic book around the relationships with the forest in the Serra da Estrela. Reflecting on the past, present and future of this territory and its forests, this book does not only seek to consolidate the work and reflection already carried out in previous projects: it also wants to bring the reflection further with new contributions both from the collaborators and the collective. The book will be published in 2025 by the wonderful Portuguese publisher Museu da Paisagem and will be presented in several venues.
à escuta
publications
Working as a mediator that brings together various agents and communities in a territory, à escuta tries to contribute, through its artistic practice, to the reflection on the future of the Serra da Estrela Natural Park (or the other territories where it is also invited to work in). The rapid ageing of the communities in Serra da Estrela (and of most communities in the interior of Portugal), their increasing depopulation rate and the exposure to the impacts of climate change, such as extreme wild forest fires, are some of the reasons that lead to a difficulty in envisioning a future, a difficulty expressed by many communities and agents in these territories.
Moreover, the fact that certain types of important non-written knowledge of these territories and communities tend to be no longer transmitted to the present and future generations make it an ‘ideal’ scenario for its disappearance. With no connection to the past, the future will be, a few years from now, even more difficult to envision.
An important aspect of à escuta’s work is the written dimension of its publications. They try to contribute to the preservation of these important types of knowledge, inscribing it - transcribing conversations/interviews/field recordings, etc. The use of inscription is, however, not a static one: it is always used in dialogue with ideas and contributions for the present and the future brought by communities, collaborators from different areas, civic movements and members of the collective. Bringing together both local and global scale approaches towards similar issues, the à escuta publications seek to constitute useful tools for the collective reflection and agency of communities and territories.
These publications tend to be fragmentary, polyphonic – acknowledging many different voices and points of resonance – and non-hierarchical. They tend to have contributions from local communities, members of the collective and collaborators, and to share multiple ways of thinking, multiple language approaches (scientific, poetic, practical, artistic, philosophical, historical, sensitive, etc.) and very different materials (photos, graphical contents, expanded contents – music, videos, sound pieces, etc.).
Since its first project, Catálogo poético (2020-21), the collective has been creating several publications in PT. Publications are edited by Corinna Lawrenz and Joana Sá, except for the first publication, ‘à escuta: catálogo poético’, which was edited by Joana Sá and Luís J Martins.
Having collected an incommensurable amount of precious and interesting information about relationships with the forest in these territories - both with communities and collaborators - the collective is, at the time, working on an expanded book. The book, to be published in 2025 by Museu da Paisagem, will be a polyphonic reflection/resonance about what ‘guarding a forest’ could mean today. Stay tuned to the à escuta channels!
à escuta : publications (in PT) will be soon available for download at www.aescuta.pt
or contact: aescuta.catalogopoetico@gmail.com
