The Towards Earth | A new natural for urban ecologies is a collaborative laboratory at Rua das Gaivotas 6 that aims to reconceptualize the world through food.
This project invites transdisciplinary artists, activists, curators, chefs, gardeners, local producers, poets, writers, biologists and scientists to an exchange of knowledge, experimentations and collective pedagogies that contribute to a common sharing space during 3 editions between 2023 and 2024 at Rua das Gaivotas 6 in Lisbon.
National
Portugal
Metropolitan Area of Lisbon, Center, Alentejo, Algarve.
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
No
No
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Rua das Gaivotas / Teatro Praga Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Joana Last name of representative: Horta Age: 29 Please attach a copy of your national ID/residence card:
By ticking this box, I certify that the information regarding my age is factually correct. : Yes Gender: Female Nationality: Portugal If relevant, please select your other nationality: Germany Function: Artistic Director Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Rua das Gaivotas 6 Town: Lisbon Postal code: 1200-202 Country: Portugal Direct Tel:+351 924 040 214 E-mail:ruadasgaivotas@teatropraga.com Website:https://ruadasgaivotas6.pt/
Assembleia Terra | A new natural for urban ecologies is a collaborative laboratory at Rua das Gaivotas 6 that aims to reconceptualize the world through food.
This project invites transdisciplinary artists, activists, curators, chefs, gardeners, local producers, poets, writers, biologists and scientists to an exchange of knowledge, experimentations and collective pedagogies that contribute to a common sharing space during 3 editions between 2023 and 2024 at Rua das Gaivotas 6 in Lisbon.
The idea is to contribute to a meeting place and co-creation around the table with the objective of dialoguing about food and cooking as inherent elements of human culture and, consequently, as material for the process of environmental awareness.
Assembleia Terra | A new natural for urban ecologies is thus a platform where artistic, scientific, culinary, agricultural and creative practices and the audiences meet, cook, eat and discuss food as a vehicle for new perspectives of our collective futures and sustainable alternatives to cohabit earth.
Dates: first residency, October 2023 | second residency April/May 2024 | third and final residency September/October 2024 + publication of research/ artists book or exhibition.
Structure: three residencies | one week residency + one week open to public residency + public program that favors a community-based experience in the form of tutorial laboratories, collective dialogues, experimental performative methodologies and visits to rural/urban projects.
Rua das Gaivotas 6 is a space with a strong intention to gather, share and experiment, bringing together the most recent and diverse artistic production that takes place in Lisbon. It's a hybrid space in the heart of the city, with a gallery, a studio for rehearsals and presentations, a library, and a sound studio. Here we welcome performing arts, visual arts, music, talks, literature, cinema, workshops, research projects and many more artistic practices and ways of expression.
Transdisciplinarity
Climate Justice
Collaboration
Resilience
Futurability
In terms of sustainability this project starts with the study of food as the medium for these encounters at Rua das Gaivotas 6 — and other rural and urban spaces that we will visit throughout the program — opening a dialogue about the value of cooking as a world-building and societal shaper, and to recognize the complexity of our food systems — closely linked to human and non-human health, land, water, climate, biodiversity, economy — as a fundamental challenge to collectively rethink and reconfigure the way we eat and relate to food, and conversely how it has shaped us.
This program proposes new practices and alternative food techniques such as fermentation, foraging, community seed conservation, herbal knowledge, and regenerative agriculture as radical acts of care.
Deep reflection is proposed on food in the arts, post-natural and contemporary socio political theory, the globalization of production systems that challenge the relationship between rural and urban, the phenomena of increasing urbanization and rural exodus - which are profoundly changing the relationship between notions of nature and culture.
Assembleia Terra | A new natural for urban ecologies is thus a platform where artistic, scientific, culinary, agricultural and creative practices and the public meet, cook, eat and discuss food as a vehicle for new perspectives of collective future and sustainable alternatives.
This program aims to highlight the aesthetic experiences which are latent in the acts of cooking, eating and growing food and harness them as possible vectors for transformative change. The slowness with which a tree grows from a seedling to a thousand-year-old giant; the lively sound of a table of friends and family gathered around a meal; the smell of a freshly baked bread or of a patch of wild herbs — these are a few of the sensorial images that cross geographies, bodies and times, since the dawn of human history up to our contemporary condition. These images carry historical as well as artistic, ecological, ethnographic and anthropological potentials which we are hoping to explore with our residencies / sessions.
Design-wise, the program will be part of a holistic visual system already in place at Rua das Gaivotas 6, where visual communication is theorized within a dialogical frame — prompting dialogue and suggesting interpretations, instead of being directly objective or utilitarian. Not telling the public how it should feel or behave, our communication suggests instead an openness to different forms of occupying both physical and mental spaces during these residencies.
This platform also acknowledges the ways in which nutrition and sustenance are stratified across the different intersections of class, race, gender identity, geography and ability, and aims to give space for such underrepresented voices to speak for themselves regarding their relationship to land and food.
The key objectives of this platform in terms of inclusion are to open a space for a transgenerational audience interested in current ecological debates — whether you're just beginning your journey or already have experience in the field. A diverse range of professionals, including students of both art and theoretical practices, artists, curators, farmers, gardeners, chefs, theorists, designers, scientists, researchers, educators are invited to collaborate with the local community, focusing on the collaborative generation of knowledge, networks of care, and innovative approaches. In terms of affordability, this program aims to be free of charge and accessible to all.
This program will be a transdisciplinary investigation aimed at mapping, thematizing, understanding, questioning and contextualizing issues related to contemporary food systems, which is shared with the public in order to broaden the network of cultural action and show that artistic practices allow for a dialogue between discourses and investigations from the natural and social sciences.
It is of civic interest to participate and engage with the ways in which we eat, cook and grow food, understanding how different social positions (from urban to rural spaces, from lower to upper classes) also have different responsibilities and are entangled in different modes within these systems. By engaging with our program, we hope to amplity the imagination of citizens regarding their role in the collective making of a common future for all, one where thinking about ecology and sustainability can't be separated from thinking about human rights or matters of food sovereignty. The connectedness of these issues can be vehicled through aesthetic and artistic discourses, and that is what we hope to nourish at Rua das Gaivotas 6.
Joana Kramer Horta, Artistic Director at Rua das Gaivotas 6 and founder of the Project Ponto d’Orvalho a — transdisciplinary festival open to environmental discussion and action through artistic, social and ecological interventions in Montemor-o-Novo, Alentejo Region — Starting in 2020, Ponto d'Orvalho is now heading towards its 4th edition in September 2023. This project has been occupying an important place in Montemor-O-Novo, Central Alentejo in the relationship between art and ecology and in the implementation of new forms of cultural programming in the territory. She is also the project leader of this program proposal for the Bauhaus Prize, together with the Rua das Gaivotas 6 team Afonso Matos, Sara Aires and Filipe Pureza, experts in the areas of Design, Communication, Production and Technical Direction. Thought this program we aim to collaborate with strong regional, national and international partners which seeks to develop new ways in which contemporary art practices can make interventions in a wide range of ecological contexts and extend the ways in which ecology is understood.
We’ll partner up with national projects such as Grão Residências, Arquipélago, Masmorra, Galerias Municipais, Hortas Urbanas Lisboa, Herdade do Freixo do Meio, Delta Cafés, Jardins Abertos, Upfarming, Comida Independente, Canal180, Contemporânea, Passa ao Futuro, Escola Nómada, Equal Food, Quinta do Olival da Murta, Eternal Forest. All of them with an important role in rural and urban areas in Portugal, invest in artistic creation, in the development of cultural initiatives and educational service actions with local communities. We’ll invite artistic, thinker, curators and practitioners such as Filipa Ramos, Rita Natalio, Andreia Garcia, Inês Neto dos Santos, Fernanda Botelho, Diana Policarpo, Marta Wangorovios, Alfredo Cunhal Sendim, Maria Rosário Oliveira, Landra, Margarida Mendes, Joana Ecoval, Carolina Trigueiros, Margeaux Schwab, HAUT, Mariana Pestana, and many others.
The mission of this program is to create a unique environment in each residency/session for the exchange of ideas and practices. Engaging in a metaphorically charged activity to explore and debate alternative solutions for nutrition, home-made agriculture, food circulation, ecological issues, collectivism, and gender roles. Through this activity, we imagine these topics can be addressed and improved to create a more sustainable and equitable future by incorporating approaches such as ecofeminism, Black studies, queer ecologies, anti - and postcolonial theory, and science and technology studies.
Compared to mainstream actions the romanticized idea of nature as a passive backdrop for human activity is no longer working and must be replaced by a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding. From a critical perspective, it is essential to explore the multiple layers that form the environment.
The separation of human agents from their lived environment can be witnessed even at the linguistic level, by the fact that we refer to "nature" as such a thing that is separate from us — a place we go to, a resource we exploit, a landscape to be enjoyed. Questioning the "nature / culture" divide is part of what we aim to target with our programme using food as the main catalyst for these interrogations.
We are also aiming at distancing this project from an utopian ‘back to the original’ version of ecological discourse, by thinking and embracing practices that ‘stay with the trouble’ (Haraway) and try to respond at a partial and local level, as they contribute to a changing perception of individual and collective responsibility.
Our concept relies on small-scale experimentation with collaboration, cooperation and theoretical questioning aided by artistic and conceptual thinking. All these dimensions can be applied to different fields of knowledge, and a cross-pollination between the natural sciences, the humanities and the arts would very much benefit from the kind of transdisciplinary thinking we would like to foster with this programme. The kind of critical thinking we are applying to our food systems is the same kind of thinking that can be transferred to other lines of inquiry, in order to act against marginalizing and oppressive structures that segregate human and non-human bodies across physical and fictional borders.
In terms of global challenges, this program is a unique opportunity to work together and to address the pressing issues of environmental racism, climate justice and food sovereignty, bringing together perspectives from both the natural and social sciences to explore the interactions between humans and their environments in the context of a city. Through this project and collaboration, we want to build a world that respects and celebrates the diversity of cultures and identities, while protecting the planet and its resources.
