The Azores Arts Festival will celebrate its tenth edition in São Miguel, one of the nine Azorean islands of the Portuguese archipelago. Titled Walk&Talk, and under the motto “Where we go it shall be”, the event will be taking place as a face-to-face edition over ten days, from July 15 until the 24. After a decade of creating a collective experience of art, the festival chooses this year to highlight the exploration of three dimensions: “circulation, time and encounter” and their influence over the constructions of perceptions, codes movements and new ecologies.
Following a road lined with artworks made by 23 artists and collectives, the programme is organised around daily excursions that take the audience on a journey through exhibitions, installations, performances, talks and food. Walk&Talk will be one of the first public events to take place in the Azores in 2021, with a physical format that works as a pilot experience in the implementation of safety procedures adapted to the new post-Covid reality.
With the support of the Portuguese Ministry of Culture, the Azores government, Azores Tourist board and the local Municipality, the festival will exhibit fresh artworks, most of them being the result of artistic residencies developed in the Azores between 2018 and 2021. This year we note the presence of Abbas Akhavan, Catarina Miranda, Diogo Lima and Mané Pacheco, selected thanks to the curatorial team formed by Jesse James and Sofia Carolina Botelho, and the invited curator Ana Cristina Cachola.
Lisbon-based Mané Pacheco's exhibition Pelágica of drawing, sculpture, installation, video, photography and performance is happening on 16th July at 5pm at the Carlos Machado museum. It treats feminism and ecology. Pelágica relates to the recent classification of the Azorean archipelago as a Hope spot: a place of exceptional and rare marine biodiversity considered critical for ocean conservation.
Also a premiere of Azorean Director Diogo Lima's The Last Days of Emanuel Raposo mockumentary will be taking place a 4 minute walk away at Teatro Micaelense - although the timings are as of yet unannounced. Diogo Lima is strongly linked to Azorean visual culture, the mockumentary seems to promise laughs and escapism.
On 18th July at 7pm Catarina Miranda's dance piece previously exhibited at the experimental Palais de Tokyo in Paris is coming to the Azores Arquipélago Arts Centre on the North side of the island. Dream is the dreamer features post-humanist gestures, one performer and three plastic bags.
Crossing back to Ponta Delgada at the Jardim José de Canto, Tehran-born Abbas Akhavan's site-specific installation piece a study of a garden, focuses on drift and observation. Running on 21st July at 5pm the piece promises lush green space where "the vegetation and bird songs insulate and drown out much of the traffic sounds. The urge is to find something, but, in fact, the aim is to get lost." The art of getting lost evokes the poetic history of flânerie in a tropical urban setting.
With the support of the Portuguese Ministry of Culture, the Azores government, Azores Tourist board and the local Municipality, the festival will exhibit fresh artworks, most of them being the result of artistic residencies developed in the Azores between 2018 and 2021. This year we note the presence of Abbas Akhavan, Catarina Miranda, Diogo Lima and Mané Pacheco, selected thanks to the curatorial team formed by Jesse James and Sofia Carolina Botelho, and the invited curator Ana Cristina Cachola.
Lisbon-based Mané Pacheco's exhibition Pelágica of drawing, sculpture, installation, video, photography and performance is happening on 16th July at 5pm at the Carlos Machado museum. It treats feminism and ecology. Pelágica relates to the recent classification of the Azorean archipelago as a Hope spot: a place of exceptional and rare marine biodiversity considered critical for ocean conservation.
Also a premiere of Azorean Director Diogo Lima's The Last Days of Emanuel Raposo mockumentary will be taking place a 4 minute walk away at Teatro Micaelense - although the timings are as of yet unannounced. Diogo Lima is strongly linked to Azorean visual culture, the mockumentary seems to promise laughs and escapism.
On 18th July at 7pm Catarina Miranda's dance piece previously exhibited at the experimental Palais de Tokyo in Paris is coming to the Azores Arquipélago Arts Centre on the North side of the island. Dream is the dreamer features post-humanist gestures, one performer and three plastic bags.
Crossing back to Ponta Delgada at the Jardim José de Canto, Tehran-born Abbas Akhavan's site-specific installation piece a study of a garden, focuses on drift and observation. Running on 21st July at 5pm the piece promises lush green space where "the vegetation and bird songs insulate and drown out much of the traffic sounds. The urge is to find something, but, in fact, the aim is to get lost." The art of getting lost evokes the poetic history of flânerie in a tropical urban setting.
Abbas Akhavan
Diogo Lima
Catarina Miranda
Mané Pacheco
Catarina Miranda
