ARTISTIC INTERVENTION PROJECTS AND CULTURAL MEMORY: EXPERIENCES FROM PORTUGAL’S CENTRE REGION
Abstract
In July and August 2013, O Teatrão, a Coimbra-based theatre company, presented the project Arruin-ados, comprising three theatre performances in three abandoned spaces (‘ruins’), one in each of three cities in the Centre region of Portugal located along the Mondego River: Coimbra, Montemor-o-Velho, and Figueira da Foz. Developed through a community the atre approach, the artistic presentations were based on the collection of local memories, including local testimonies and other types of local materials from local, social, and economic history. The objectives of the project were to bring un-der reflection how different types of urban and rural ruins, understood as scars and tattoos of a country, may speak about the history of that country and, at the same time, may inspire the possible future transformations and possibilities of change. In parallel with this reflec-tion, the artistic production embodies a strong commit-ment to build collective projects; a sense of a shared, common territory; and a network of people and things to explore and articulate, in a localized, concrete way, the history of Portugal between 1890 and 2020. The paper assesses the role and significance of Arruinados in the context of collective memory, community-based artistic interventions in public space, and the potential for local mobilization through the arts.References
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[15] Brian Dillon, Ruins. Cambridge, MA, and London: Whitechapel Gallery, 2011.
[16] E. Peralta, A Memória do Mar : Património, Tradição e (Re)imaginação Identitária na Contemporaneidade. Lisbon: In-stituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e PolÃticas, 2008.
[2] Paul Ricoeur, La mémoire, l'histoire, l'oubli. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2000.
[3] John Bodnar, Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemora-tion, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992.
[4] Astrid Erll, Ansgar Nünning and Sara B. Young (eds.), Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Hand-book. Berlin; New York: Gruyter, 2008.
[5] Rob Shields, Places on the Margin: Alternative Geographies of Modernity. London and New York: Routledge, 1991.
[6] Kathleen Irwin, “Art of Activism: The Dilemma of Performing Ponteix,†in W.F. Garrett-Petts, James Hoffman, and Ginny Ratsoy (eds.), Whose Culture is it Anyway? Community Engage-ment in Small Cities. Vancouver: New Star Books, 2013.
[7] Russell Johnston and Michael Ripmeester. “That big statue of whoeverâ€: Material commemoration and narrative in the Niag-ara Region,†in James Opp and John C. Walsh (eds.), Placing Memory and Remembering Place in Canada. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010.
[8] James Opp and John C. Walsh, “Introduction: Local Acts of Plac-ing and Remembering,†in James Opp and John C. Walsh (eds.), Placing Memory and Remembering Place in Canada. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010.
[9] Griet Verschelden, Elly Van Eeghem, Riet Steel, Sven De Visscher and Carlos Dekeyrel, “Positioning community art prac-tices in urban cracks,†International Journal of Lifelong Educa-tion, 31:3, 277-291, 2012.
[10] Lucy R. Lippard, “Small cities, big ideas,†in W.F. Garrett-Petts, James Hoffman, and Ginny Ratsoy (eds.), Whose Culture is it An-yway? Community Engagement in Small Cities. Vancouver: New Star Books, 2013.
[11] Jeff Kelley, “Art in place,†Headlands Journal, 1991.
[12] Charlotte Å unde and Alys Longley. “fluid city/Water in the Sustainable City: An arts-science-education collaboration for TÄmaki Makaurau Auckland, New Zealand,†in Nancy Duxbury (ed.), Animation of Public Space through the Arts: Towards More Sustainable Communities. Coimbra: Almedina, 2013.
[13] D. E. Clover, “Culture and antiracism in adult education: An exploration of the contributions of arts-based learning,†Adult Education Quarterly, 57(1), 46-61, 2006.
[14] D. E. Clover, “Feminist aesthetic practice of community devel-opment: the case of Myths and Mirrors Community Arts,†Community Development Journal, 42(4), 512-522, 2007.
[15] Brian Dillon, Ruins. Cambridge, MA, and London: Whitechapel Gallery, 2011.
[16] E. Peralta, A Memória do Mar : Património, Tradição e (Re)imaginação Identitária na Contemporaneidade. Lisbon: In-stituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e PolÃticas, 2008.
How to Cite
PATO CARVALHO, Claudia; DUXBURY, Nancy.
ARTISTIC INTERVENTION PROJECTS AND CULTURAL MEMORY: EXPERIENCES FROM PORTUGAL’S CENTRE REGION.
Култура/Culture, [S.l.], n. 8, p. 21-32, mar. 2015.
ISSN 1857-7725.
Available at: <http://journals.cultcenter.net/index.php/culture/article/view/112>. Date accessed: 17 mar. 2026.
Section
English Articles
Keywords
artistic intervention, collective memory, local memories, ruins, public space
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