Por um Galho - Social and Artistic Intervention for Nature
“Por um Galho - Social and Artistic Intervention for Nature” is an interactive environmental art project that seeks to establish mutual relationships between art, nature and community. A multidisciplinary project of visual and performing arts, which aims to include and value seniors through their involvement in the co-creation, realization and exhibition of five site-specific, ephemeral and biodegradable installations, built with 100% natural materials, especially invasive plants.
Local
Portugal
Esposende - Antas
Mainly rural
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Grupo de Acção de Solidariedade Social de Antas Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Andreia Last name of representative: Pereira Gender: Female Nationality: Portugal Function: Project coordinator and social director Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Rua Padre Apolinário Rios n.115 Town: Esposende Postal code: 4740-011 Country: Portugal Direct Tel:+351 926 278 473 E-mail:porumgalho@grassa.pt Website:https://www.grassa.pt/porumgalho
“Por um Galho - Social and Artistic Intervention for Nature” is an interactive environmental art project that seeks to establish mutual relationships between art, nature and community. A multidisciplinary project of visual and performing arts, which aims to include and value seniors through their involvement in the co-creation, realization and exhibition of five site-specific, ephemeral and biodegradable installations, built with 100% natural materials, especially invasive plants.
The artistic installations are placed in five points of the Litoral Norte Nature Park, creating a route on already existing pedestrian routes and has a performative presentation.
The main audience for this project are people over 65 years old (seniors), retired, pensioners, or other adults without a professional occupation. The people involved in this project are people from the community, aged between 47 and 94.
The project is promoted by GRASSA, a private social solidarity institution from Antas, with artistic direction by Gabriela Gomes and social direction by Andreia Pereira, in partnership with environmental protection entities (Rio Neiva - Environmental Defense Association and Litoral Norte Nature Park) and local authorities (Antas Parish Council and Esposende City Council). The project is located in Antas, Esposende, has a duration of 36 months (2021-2023) and is supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the “la Caixa” Foundation through the PARTIS & Art for Change initiative.
Contemporary Art
Inclusion
Nature and Biodiversity
Non-formal Education
Aging
This initiative aims to promote learning in favor of sustainable development, through raising awareness of environmental and biodiversity issues and changing attitudes towards the natural space. These goals are achieved through workshops of artistic and environmental activities, aiming to create ephemeral sculptural installations using only 100% natural and biodegradable materials like invasive plants. In practice, the experimental activities of the workshops develop handmade works from plants, by applying techniques used in other contexts and thus creating differentiating pieces.
In this project, the use of the natural space as an exhibition space promotes contact between the beneficiaries and nature, through walks to explore the natural territory and the identification of local invasive plants. Field trips are also carried out for the study and selection of exhibition sites in order to place site-specific artistic installations.
The installations are placed on the existing trails along the Litoral Norte Nature Park, a place of great influx of people, attracting the curiosity of hikers/visitors, raising awareness of the sustainability of the arts and environmental issues of the territory. They also value the community’s natural and immaterial heritage, since the installations are inspired by stories from the community, related to the places where they are displayed.
This is an innovative action that unites art, nature and the community in the natural landscape, through public presentation and the use of environmentally friendly techniques that don’t require any type of polluting material.
At the end of the project, it’s expected to create a handbook of good practices, to be replicated in other artistic, social and environmental contexts.
The project is being developed in the field of visual and performing arts. Site-specific installations are developed in co-authorship with the group of participants, seniors from the Antas - Esposende community. Technical experiments were carried out with invasive plants, with the objective of selecting the most suitable techniques for the creation of five medium-large size final pieces, to be installed along the Litoral Norte Nature Park. The pieces are ephemeral and biodegradable, leaving no ecological footprint on nature. They are inspired by the life stories of the participants and related to the exhibition venues, thus simultaneously valuing the community's natural and intangible heritage. The project culminates in a performative presentation open to the entire community, about the participants' relationship with the pieces and the natural space.
These participants did not have any contact with the artistic world in their active lives, so the project allowed for new learning experiences through weekly artistic workshops.
At this point in the project, several experiences have already been developed (over the first year of the project), and the final pieces are currently being completed.
Participants feel pride in their creations, contributing to their personal and social appreciation.
We consider this project an example of how the community can get involved in the creation and development of pieces with artistic quality, developed by non-professionals, in co-authorship with an artist.
The project is developed with a group of senior participants and aims to include and value older people, combat social isolation and promote moments of conviviality and quality participation in the community.
It is a very heterogeneous work group, with very different interests, physical and cognitive abilities, education levels, work rhythms and life experiences. Therefore, we seek to adapt the activities to be developed to the interests and skills of each one, in order to maintain everyone's motivation through a flexible pedagogical methodology. It is necessary to respect the different rhythms of work and different understandings of artistic and environmental issues, but we must always open up new perspectives and find a genuine contribution from everyone to the development of collective work.
This project is a practical example and demonstrates how the articulation and joint work of so many different people around the artistic goal is possible.
The project is free and open to the senior community in general. In the beginning, a public disclosure event was held to launch the project and we had the collaboration of partner institutions to promote the project in the community.
The participants are involved in all phases of the artistic project, namely in the research and experimentation of techniques, in debate of the concept, in the development and realization of the pieces and finally in the performative public presentation. The project's direct participants also benefit from new cultural and environmental knowledge and learning, and have contact with new means of artistic expression.
There is a very positive impact in terms of personal appreciation because people understand that they are carrying out work with artistic quality and with an actual impact on the community. They also contribute to the recording of the local intangible heritage through their memories and life stories, since the entire process will also be recorded in a book and a video-documentary. The project also promotes moments of socialization, combating social exclusion.
The installations will be displayed along a route in the Litoral Norte Nature Park, thus creating a hiking route, promoting contact with nature and aesthetic enjoyment for the entire community.
GRASSA, a private social solidarity institution from Antas, together with the visual artist Gabriela Gomes, started this interactive environmental art project, involving local partners from the start, such as Rio Neiva - Environmental Defense Association, Litoral Norte Nature Park and the Antas Parish Council. Subsequently, the Esposende City Council joined the project. Hence, the project is represented by the social, artistic and environmental part, through these different entities, which come together and collaborate with each other for the development of the project, each part contributing with different knowledge and skills that enrich the whole.
This project is supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the “la Caixa” Foundation through the PARTIS & Art for Change initiative.
The fields of knowledge worked on in this project are the visual arts, performing arts, environmental education and the intangible heritage of the community (memories and life stories). The first artistic experiences began from the identification of invasive plants in the local territory and the issues of biodiversity. Here, the arts work as means of raising environmental awareness, of crossing people and knowledge.
This project has a multidisciplinary team, with technicians from the artistic, social and environmental areas, who, together, work in these three core areas of knowledge of the project, which are present throughout the entire process.
The participants themselves are key players in sharing knowledge and will leave their mark on the registration and legacy of the community's intangible heritage.
This project is pioneer in cross-linking these areas of knowledge, specifically in the involvement and promotion of learning in the senior population and intervention in the landscape itself with aesthetic, ephemeral and biodegradable elements, with natural materials and without an environmental footprint. It works with inclusion, art and nature in a differentiating way.
Another innovation is the use of invasive plants as material for the development of sculptural installations, establishing an effective relationship between art and biodiversity issues in the territories, combined with the stories of the community.
This project also allows some moments of intergenerational work and knowledge sharing with children and young people from local schools, where the seniors themselves already transmit some of the knowledge acquired throughout the project.
From a global point of view, this project can be transferred to other contexts, and can be replicated in other vulnerable groups with different characteristics since it uses flexible methodology and is adjusted to the needs, interests and capacities of the beneficiaries. The experimental nature of the techniques allow the development of work with different plants, making it possible to recognize invasive plants in other territories and consequently apply other craft techniques and new artistic experiences with the local invasive plants.
The participants' memories and stories, which inspire the artistic pieces, can promote the collection of intangible heritage from other communities.
The site specific results can be applied to other territories and natural spaces, allowing new creations and aesthetic experiences.
This is a non-formal education project, with a flexible methodology adjusted to the characteristics and capabilities of the participants.
The workshops are organized into two distinct groups based on the individual characteristics of the participants. Group 1 is composed mostly of people in the fourth age (over 80 years old) and with greater physical and cognitive limitations. Group 2 is also composed of seniors, but with greater autonomy and functional capacity. Initially this division was carried out due to issues related to the pandemic. Considering the very different pace of work, we later realized that it was important to keep this model so that all participants remained motivated. These workshops usually have around 12 to 20 participants per session.
In these sessions, the participants contribute to the collective project, decide what they want to see represented in their pieces (based on their life and community stories) and whether these will be figurative or non-figurative. They also decide the techniques they intend to use in these same pieces, the dimensions and choice of materials to be used according to the aesthetic result they want. All of this happens after 1 year of experimenting different techniques with natural materials (plants) that exist in the natural park. Participants also select sites for Art Installations in the Litoral Norte Nature Park, while bearing in mind the artistic and technical guidelines and legal issues.
The adaptation of the activities and functions to be developed in the project to the characteristics of the people, allows the inclusion and involvement of all.
The work proposals presented in each session have well-defined goals, in the sense that they follow a learning structure, but at the same time have the necessary flexibility to adjust to the features of each one.
The approach taken is transdisciplinary, with voluntary participation, free and flexible attendance.
The initiative addresses the global challenges of environmental issues, as well as issues of social inclusion and successful (healthy) aging.
Local solutions involved raising the awareness of participants and the community to environmental problems, through the inclusion and involvement of the senior population in the design, development and performative presentation of sculptural pieces built with natural materials, especially invasive plants, demonstrating the importance and potential of older people in the local community.
Age does not mean a loss of skills or value in the community, and this project proves that older people are capable of doing very meaningful and impactful things. The project encourages new learning and the development of other approaches. However, the previous knowledge and life experiences of the participants enrich the work to be developed. Quality artistic results value beneficiaries who feel useful and capable.
“Por um Galho” is a 3-year project, developed from 2021 to 2023. The final performative presentation of the installations is scheduled for June 24, 2023.
The project is in the final stage of development, with several artistic techniques developed and currently working on the 5 final artistic projects; 2 of them are already properly finalized.
The project won the international Amateo Award 2022, which distinguishes inspiring creative projects that have a strong positive impact on the community and in which the main actors are non-professional artists. In January of this year, it also received a visit from the Portuguese Minister of Culture.
At the moment we are also signing a protocol with the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, in which students of the Master in Fine Arts will participate.
Direct participants already feel the benefits in terms of personal appreciation, interaction, socialization, acquisition of new learning and cognitive stimulation. Participants are also aware of environmental issues. The evolution in the learning of the direct participants is notorious, who already have a greater technical awareness, more self-confidence and boosted their know-how and craft skills. They also became more confident in sharing their ideas and suggestions for the project. There is excellent articulation between participants, in the development of teamwork. The benefits are also felt by the team itself and the entities involved, through crossing different areas and new perspectives of work.
Several events open to the community were held, promoting artistic and environmental awareness among indirect participants.
For 2023, it is also planned to produce a book and a video documentary about the project, as well as a handbook of good practices and a printed and digital itinerary with the route of the 5 sculptural installations along the Litoral Norte Nature Park. There will also be guided tours by the participants to the installations.
The project contributes to the development of new skills in the GreenComp context, namely in the points “Valuing sustainability”, “Promoting nature” and “Acting towards sustainability”. We consider that participants reflect on values and perspectives in relation to sustainability concerns. The project assesses “its own impact on nature”, considers “the protection of nature an essential task for each individual” and “is concerned with the existence of a harmonious relationship between nature and human beings”, with “acting for change in collaboration with others”, through “coordination, collaboration and cooperation among peers”. Working together with diverse partners from different areas to jointly “work to achieve the same goal”, people can find opportunities and face challenges to contribute effectively to the resolution of sustainability problems at a local level.
