About

The Particular Universal association emerges following the development, from 2021 to 2024, of a project with the same name (Particular Universal), funded by the EEA Grants mechanism and led by OUT.RA – Associação Cultural, an organization based in Barreiro with a long track record of work at local, national, and international levels, and which shares part of its founding members with the Particular Universal association.

Within the scope of this project, subtitled “Identity, Memory and Landscape in Castro Marim”, around twenty artistic residencies were organized, always connected to themes related to the tangible and intangible heritage of the region, and always using Sound as a raw material for multidisciplinary reflections that explored the history, present, and future challenges of the territory. These residencies gave rise to artistic works that were presented in various contexts to local audiences across different venues in the Municipality of Castro Marim, both continuously over the nearly three-year period and in concentrated form during the 1st edition of the Festival Particular Universal.

The project also included educational activities (such as the “Exploradores Sonoros” workshops held in local schools), Documentary Theatre actions, and the creation of the Castro Marim Sound Archive - a major undertaking that placed the Municipality among the still limited group of Portuguese municipalities with their own sound archive.

Collaboration with local and regional actors (such as the Sapal de Castro Marim and Vila Real de Santo António Nature Preserve, the Algarve University, the Castro Marim Municipality, or the Banda Musical Castromarinense, for instance) was a defining feature of this project, materializing through resource sharing, scientific guidance and consultancy for some of the artists-in-residence, as well as in collaborative creations. Partnerships with artistic entities from other parts of the country (Filho Único and Teatro do Vestido, Lisbon) and from abroad (nyMusikk, Norway) also boosted the work developed by much of the Association’s team.

The collaborative approach and the continued connection to this territory are the main motivations behind the creation of the Particular Universal association, which includes several members of the team responsible for the conceptualization, implementation, and management of these artistic residencies and their public presentations, as well as cultural professionals with experience in the interior regions of the country and their vast, still largely untapped artistic potential.

While the Association, due to its recent foundation, does not yet have its own track record, its artistic and cultural foundations and its team already possess extensive experience in cultural projects built and developed in dialogue with the territories in which they are implemented.