Marta De Pascalis in residence

Marta De Pascalis is an Italian musician and sound-designer based in Berlin. Her solo works employ analog, FM synthesis and a tape-loop system, whereby she creates music that shapes a sense of a dense, dynamic and cathartic distance. Her sound touches a wide range of electronic music genres, such as ambient, psychedelic or tape music.

During her residency in Castro Marim (the final artistic residency in the scope of the Particular Universal-project), Marta focused on the problem of drought in this region of the country, immersing herself in the Guadiana ecosystem, in the dams of Odeleite and Beliche, and the tides and their impact on daily life. The work she composed was presented live at the Biblioteca Municipal's lineup, on the 9th of March at 6.00pm, in the scope of the Particular Universal wrap-up festival.

On the 8th and 9th of March, we celebrate the end of the Particular Universal with a festival showcasing works by several of the artists who developed artistic residencies in Castro Marim over the last couple of years, creating new works in dialogue with the region’s identity, traditions, landscapes and soundscapes.

The festival is spread throughout diverse town spaces, such as the Castle, the Municipal Library, the Tourism office and the Velho Cavalinho tavern, as well as in the auditorium of the Castro Marim and VRSA natural marsh reserve, in the Guadiana river estuary. All events are free of charge.

In the programme we can find screenings of works by Knut Olaf Sunde and Odete, the diffusion of an audio piece by Magdaléna Manderlová, the first presentation of the work developed by Marta de Pascalis(the last artist in residency in the scope of the project), and concerts by Adriana João & Polido, Maria Reis and O Morto. Rounding things up, there will also be an open conversation with several artists and member organizations.

Full programme here.

usof is a musician, visual artist, DJ, promoter of events primarily focused on ambient and immersive music, and one of the cofounders of Rotten \ Fresh, a label internationally recognized as a Portuguese reference for contemporary and experimental music of the last half-decade.

During this residency in Castro Marim, for which the artist was selected via the Open Call launched at the beginning of this year, usof produced and presented original compositions inspired by the history, landscape and folklore of the territory, as well as field recordings and sounds found on the terrain. The artist resorted to various techniques common in ambient music, such as granular synthesis and spatialization, to create a multi-channel soundscape in constant change that evokes the feeling of isolation and solitude that characterizes the history of the municipality, as well as the natural beauty of Castro Marim, its architecture and the increasing trend for development and progress in friction with the necessity to preserve its heritage.

These compositions were presented in a multimedia concert with quadraphonic sound, at the auditorium of Castro Marim’s Biblioteca Municipal, on the 20th of July.

We had the chance to talk to usof about the relationship between sound and image in his compositions, the use of quadraphonic sound, and the theme of contraband.

On the 8th of November, at 6pm, the Castro Marim Municipal Library will host an event which will take us on a journey through the sonic heritage of the region. 

The Castro Marim Sound Archive is the result of a collaborative, year-long effort between the Particular Universal project, the local municipality and several institutions and citizens. This collection of “sound portraits” was assembled by artist Carlos Norton, between January 2022 and March 2023, and also includes contributions from Portuguese and international artists who developed artistic residencies in Castro Marim.

The Castro Marim Sound Archive lives on as tangible legacy from the Particular Universal project (which, between 2021 and 2023, produced around twenty artistic residencies in the region), but it’s more than a collection or a catalog of sounds - it’s also, and foremost, an immersive tool into the historical, social, environmental and cultural dimensions of Castro Marim. 

This archive will be freely available online (in both Portuguese and English language), at www.arquivosonorocastromarim.pt, starting the day after its public presentation. With more than 1500 minutes of sound recordings, encompassing a wide range of activities such as salt extraction, fish-farming, basketry or the rich birdlife in the nature reserve, this sound archive reflects the living and diverse life of Castro Marim.

Uniting the past and the present through the listening experience, the Castro Marim Sound Archive is a tribute to the rich and unique identity of this community and territory, preserving it for generations to come.

Selected via the open call launched earlier this year, the collaborative project from singer-songwriter chica and bá alvares, double-bass player and key figure of some of the most fertile and diverse musical scenes in Lisbon, seeks to grapple, in Castro Marim, the problematics of “society’s undesirables”, an expression utilized by the Estado Novo to define punishment by exile over decades of repression in the not so distant past.

Following previous research work and interviews focused on this historical question along with Teresa Serra Nunes, who joined the group for this interview, chica and bá alvares developed new songs and lyrics based on the resources generated from this investigation - creating a dialogue with past and present lives, in a sharing of ‘despair’, which, as is often said, is “the essence of protest songs”. These songs of sorrow were presented live at Velho Cavalinho - Taberna Medieval, on the afternoon of the 24th of June.

This Saturday (September 9th), Teatro do Vestido presents its latest itinerant creation in Castro Marim. The journey will have a duration of approximately 5 hours and includes a meal.

The show will incorporate routes on foot and by bus, allowing participants to explore different facets of the city. The meeting point will be at Praça 1º de Maio, in Castro Marim. The audience is encouraged to bring comfortable footwear, bottled water and outerwear.

Free entry.

To guarantee your participation in this event, reservations can be made through the e-mail geral@teatrodovestido.pt, or through the Posto de Turismo de Castro Marim.

Clara Cortes Garcia (1990) is a multidisciplinary artist born in Barcelona whose main subject is water. She has done projects, solo and group performances/ exhibitions/ shows/ installations in Barcelona, Berlin, Istanbul, Kuala Lumpur, Taiwan, Iceland and Tokyo. Her work is always linked to the space that surrounds her.

During her artistic residency in Castro Marim (for which she was selected following the Open Call put in place earlier this year) she continued her decade-long research into water. She recorded sounds and videos of the shapes/forms that can be found at the Guadiana river, the Atlantic Ocean and the Odeleite and Beliche dams, with the aim of transforming and distorting them to create an archive of a parallel perceptual reality of the experience of walking around them. The work was presented as an a/v installation at Casa do Sal, which opened on May 31st.

We talked to Clara about the artistic qualities of water, the process of capturing abstraction, and the characteristics of Castro Marim that fascinate her the most.

David Ole is a Portuguese musician and craftsman, born in Braga in 1991. Having been initiated in the realm of musical mysteries at the early age of 6, he’s been sharing his art on stage since 2009, turning matter, energy and intelligence into compositions and live performances using saxophone, percussion, custom software and a wealth of hyperinstruments. His work maneuvers sound, music and action to explore relationships between real and unreal things, magic and technology, lucidity and schizophrenia. He’s a member of several band and musical projects in the north of Portugal ranging an uncommon diversity of genres.

In this artistic residency, stemming from the Open Call we launched earlier in the year, David worked on an instrumental music piece which aims to represent and interpret Castro Marim’s identity and context as a border territory via a “martial music” composition imagined as a utopic performance throughout the Guadiana International Bridge; the work attempts to mimic the seismic effects of such an enterprise, and some of its excerpts were presented and interpreted by the local Banda Musical Castromarinense, at the Municipal Library on May 13th.

Norwegian composer Knut Olaf Sunde, whose work revolves around notions of place, duration and immersion, was in residence in the Castro Marim Municipality, as part of the Particular Universal project.

Between April 23rd and May 7th of 2022, he undertook the task of “observing, learning and trying to understand the different cultural and landscape logics” of the region, through sound and video recordings, as well as in conversation with the locals, with the aim of establishing a narrative, presented April 29th, at the Armazém do Sal.

Therese Næss Diesen is a Norwegian sound designer and sound artist. With a background in visual design and cinema, her work includes sound recording, foley and sound design for short and feature films, as well as various collaborations in the universe of performative arts and multimedia.

During her artistic residence in Castro Marim (the final one curated by our partner NyMusikk), the premise was to compose a piece consisting of sounds captured in the municipality, and presented on the 5th of May, at 9PM, as part of the Meeting on Art and Agroecology organized by Associação Catavento, at Quinta da Fornalha.

We talked to Therese about her academic and musical formation, musique concrète, and how she uses sounds to tell stories.