Identity, Memory,
Landscape,
at Castro Marim

About

The PARTICULAR UNIVERSAL project is centered on the Castro Marim Municipality, where between December 2021 and September 2023 a series of artistic co-creation activities related to themes of identity, memory and soundscapes will take place. 

The project includes several different work modules revolving around complementary concepts and strategies, such as (among others), the creation of a sound archive, a community archive for the “Voices of Memory”, and several themed artistic residencies directed towards Portuguese, Norwegian and international creators with a look towards creating and presenting theatrical works, new music and sound-art.

The methods employed on this project are intimately connected to concepts such as immersion, documentation, inspiration and collaboration, and translate into an engagement with the local community, through workshops and interviews leading into the production of community theatre works, field recordings, installations, acoustic and electronic compositions and presentations, interchanges and mentorship.

The Particular Universal project is financed by the Culture Programme of the EEA mechanism.

Activities

The activities that make up the Particular Universal project contribute to strengthen and diversify the cultural offerings within the Castro Marim Municipality, with initiatives based on the development of artistic works which are both conceived specifically for the local communities (both as participants and as audiences), and created in dialogue with the region's material and immaterial identity. There is also a focus on education, developing local audiences and artist empowerment, both through workshops and the development of competences developed through the active participation of the local community in creative processes.
Additionally, it will provide distinct artistic opportunities for creating and presenting creative work to over thirty national and international artists, fostering the development of their careers through immersion in new contexts. The project will also contribute towards the international visibility of the region and the artists involved through the artistic presentations and the residency taking place in Norway.
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Documentation

Castro Marim Sound Archive
The creation of the Castro Marim Sound Archive is part of a global strategy for enriching and increasing the visibility of the material and immaterial heritage of the Municipality, in this case through sonic documentation made through field recordings, a recognizedly important practice when it comes to preserving aesthetic, environmental and social knowledge. 

The sounds gathered during the first 18 months of the project will be catalogued and made available on an online sound archive. Alongside it, two field recording workshops with an educational focus will be organized for students in some of the Municipality's schools.
"The Voices of Memories" - Oral History Archive
"As Vozes das Memórias" ("The Voices of Memories") - has, as its core objective, the creation of a community archive of sounds, life histories and oral testimonies. Another objective is making available creative and training tools in the field of oral history, as well as stimulating artistic creations born from these premises: participating observation, life histories, locale and community. 

The initiative will also produce expositive and performative content, based upon the material gathered, to allow for the creative and artistic use of that archival material.
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Education

Empowerment and Sustainability
Educational work, particularly with young people, about the methods for gathering local stories and histories, sound documentation and the usage of technical equipment for doing so is an integral part of the Particular Universal project, with a view towards empowering citizens through their involvement in processes of gathering an transforming memories into performative moments of archival material, crucial to the preservation of the cultural identity of their surrounding area. 
Through its integration in free training sessions (among which are workshops connected to the project's many activities) implemented by DG Artes and several specialists in the fields of creating and developing professional artistic projects, Particular Universal contributes to empowering the local young and young adult population, working with the Municipality to integrate the developed activities with its cultural and tourist offerings.
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Creation and
Presentation

Sound
The Particular Universal project includes the development of artistic residencies with the goal of creating new work, with an international outlook. These include 8 to 10 themed residencies with artists chosen via open call, with a medium to long duration (15 days to 2 months), and 12 residencies directly curated by project partners Filho Unico and nyMusikk.

These artistic proposals will be conceived and executed in direct dialogue with the region's material and immaterial heritage, as well as its local community.
Theatre
Intimately connected to the collection and training actions of the "The Voices of Memories" initiative will be the moments where the documental theatre pieces derived from them will be presented. Based on previous field research, these pieces and their participants will work from participating observation, mapping voices and places. 

This artistic work will follow from an active involvement by and with the community, which is expected to actively contribute to the result of each piece created.

Partners

Financed by

Through the European Economic Area (EEA) Agreement, signed in the city of Oporto in May 1992, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway are partners, in the internal market, of the Member States of the European Union. As a way of promoting a continuous and balanced strengthening of the economic and trade relations, the parties of the European Economic Area Agreement have established a Multiannual Financial Mechanism, known as the EEA Grants. 

EEA Grants have as their objectives the reduction of social and economic disparities within Europe and the strengthening of bilateral relationships between the three countries and the beneficiary countries. For the 2014-2021 period, a total contribution of 2.8 billion euros to 15 beneficiary countries. Portugal will receive 102.7 million euros. Learn more at eeagrants.gov.pt 

Programme Operator

The Portuguese government's Ministry of Culture has as its mission to create, conduct, execute and evaluate a global and coordinated policy in the field of culture and related domains, namely, the safekeeping and enrichment of the nation's cultural heritage, supporting artistic creations and cultural promotion, empowering cultural agents and, alongside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, working towards the internationalization of the Portuguese language and culture.

The Directorate General for Cultural Heritage (DGPC, in Portuguese) is responsible for the management of cultural heritage in continental Portugal. Its functions include, among others, the study and promotion of all forms of material and immaterial heritage, preserving the country's monuments, managing the National Museums and monuments classified as World Heritage sites, as well as the documentation and inventory of immaterial heritage.

Programme Partner

The Directorate-General for the Arts is a body of the Ministry of Culture of the Portuguese Republic whose mission is to coordinate and execute the policies supporting the arts in Portugal, prioritising the promotion and enrichment of artistic creation activities, as well as the universality of its fruition.

Among the tasks attributed to it are proposing and coordinating structural measures in the field of visual, performative and inter-disciplinary arts; implement financial support programmes directed to the arts sector, consolidating and renewing the Portuguese artistic sector, and promoting equality in access to the arts.

Organization

OUT.RA is the main project promotor for Particular Universal. It has developed its professional activity for over 12 years, being responsible for the OUT.FEST festival and for the creation of a regular cultural offering in the city of Barreiro, where it has organized events in over 60 different spaces, a work which has born fruit in terms of audience development and the enrichment of patrimonial and social fabric, due also to an extensive work connected to sound documentation and its archival, formative and artistic dimensions. 

OUT.RA will ensure the general coordination of the Particular Universal project in all of its aspects (administrative, financial, communicational, as well as its artistic direction and production).

Partner

Castro Marim is a border town in the Faro District, located on the right bank of the Guadiana river. With an acknowledged historical importance (confirmed by the numerous archaeological vestiges left behind by the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans and Arabs), it was, for centuries, an important stronghold in the Algarve. It is recognized to this day as a bastion of the salt industry and as a place with a distinct tourism offering within the massified beach tourism context of the region.

The Castro Marim Municipality is the project's host entity and its epicentre, making available the spaces for the project's creative and presentation endeavours and mediating the work developed next to the population and local entities.

Partner

Teatro do Vestido is a collective, founded in 2001, which to this date has developed over 40 creations and many other initiatives sharing its creative methods. Among other things, their work concerns themes of memory and its relationship to society, through a form of theatre crossing autobiography with a deep reflection on the surrounding realities, with community as a focal point. 

Within the Particular Universal project, Teatro do Vestido will develop the activities connected with the collection of memories and the awareness and appreciation of local history, leading to the creation of a Community Archive, the development and presentation of several theatrical performances and the transversal formative activities connected to those processes.

Partner

The Norwegian nyMusikk is that country's oldest entity dedicated to the production and promotion of contemporary music and sound-art, having been founded in 1938. Besides their annual work organizing the Only Connect Festival of Sound they, through 13 departments in as many cities, work with national and international partners in their endeavours. 

As one of the Particular Universal partners, they will curate several artistic residencies and produce the public presentations and formative actions taking place in Norway, functioning as a facilitating and unifying element relating the central themes of the project to their analogous actions on Norwegian soil.

Partner

Filho Único is a cultural association which has, since 2007, been playing a fundamental role in the affirmation of new music in Portugal, programming events in partnership with many well known entities and participating in processes of creation, circulation, and promotion. 

In the context of the project, Filho Único will be responsible for the curatorship of a group of residencies by Portuguese artists.