31 Aug 2011

Projecto Travessa da Ermida presents 'Vicente'

VICENTE

————————————————————————

Travessa da Ermida

————————————————————————

City culture, urban art
Belém, September 10th to October 25th 2011

Crows – traditionally called 'Vicentes' – are an important symbol of the city of Lisbon. Discreetly, they stare at us from the coats of arms hanging from the street lamps, flying on the official flags, but have been absent from the collective memory. Now, Projecto Travessa da Ermida has decided to 'give wings' to the Crow of Lisbon, in a project of urban culture, public art and publishing, with the participation of international creators and developed in a partnership with several entities, institutions and companies. Vicente is the cosmopolitan unrest of imagination.

————————

Vicente – urban culture project
Vicente is an urban culture project dedicated to the riverside area of Belém, integrating the street, the landscape and the image of Lisbon in a set of contemporary art interventions executed at the Ermida Nossa Senhora da Conceição, and along the Travessa do Marta Pinto and its proximities.
Vicente is the international and cosmopolitan revisitation of the Crows of Lisbon, updating the sense of this important symbol of the Capital. Promoted by Projecto Travessa da Ermida, the initiative aims at bringing unrest to the contemporary identity of Lisbon, promoting touristic values and offering new motives for wandering, among historic places and nameless corners, in the Belém district. Vicente is erudite and popular, daily and mythical, timeless and contemporary.
Vicente runs from September 10th to October 25th, with artistic interventions in the public space during September and October, a program of psychogeographic walks and free flowing conversation in the Enoteca de Belém. (Saturdays, dates to be announced). And the launching of a piece of jewellery associated to this theme and produced by jeweller Alexandra Corte Real who is resident at the jewellery shop integrated in the Projecto Travessa da Ermida.
On the afternoon of the opening, we will present the book Vicente, Lisboa, Belém. This work opens a fiction-essay dialogue, featuring texts by José Sarmento de Matos, Nélson Guerreiro, Luís Oliveira e Silva, Pedro Gadanho and Mário Caeiro, author of the concept.
The poetic, mythical, historic, artistic or urbanistic visions are integrated in a graphic essay by atelier Silva Designers, the authors of the famous sardines of the Festas de Lisboa.


————————

Vicente, – the program
In the apse of Ermida, in the Travessa do Marta Pinto in Belém, British artist Simeon Nelson, dedicates a contemporary Relicary to Saint Vincent. In this sculptural evocation, the object is a modular system synthesizing ornamental geometry, Christian spirituality and industrial design, paradoxically, giving a body to the immateriality of the religious myth.
On the façade, we will witness a multiplication of Vicentes. Obsessively, in black and white, silent, backed only by the sound of paper being traced. The drawings, that will be scattered all around town, are by João Ribeiro, in an image dissemination project in a partnership with Nuno Maya and Carole Purnelle.
In the Travessa do Marta Pinto, the Czech artist Jana Matejkova proposes to decorate the street as if the spirit of Prague took over the decorative traditions of the popular districts, as if Kafka's Metamorphosis was called to inspire fado, in a mutual encounter with magic. The intervention invades the sun of the day with shadows and transforms the night into a fluttering of mysterious blots of light.
In the proximities, other ephemeral mo(nu)ments will stimulate the imagination, develop curiosity for art and, certainly, the interest for the Crows that Lisbon deserves to remember.

————————

Vicente – Concept and sustainability
As focus of creativity and cultural citizenship, Vicente develops three guidelines for urban art and culture:
Serving as anchor for extra-artistic projectual developments, it serves as a platform of entrepreneurship in the fields of communication, tourism, publishing, design and arts, through the dynamics of a Brand.
A leitmotiv of contemporary visual culture, it still poses issues such as quality, animation and life experience of image of urban space, in the context of a complex identity but of which one tries to reveal the most suggestive traces.
With a program centred on the surroundings and scenography, Vicente translates the city in moments of affection and revelation, in a hand to hand fight with public art. This way, the character and potential of spaces and views is revealed, in the direct contact between urbanism and everyday life.


————————

Vicente – the name
Vicente is the name of the patron saint of the city, whose tormented body arrived at the Tagus escorted by two crows that hovered over the ship, from Sagres. The legend is still remember in coat of arms of Lisbon. Vicente would have also been the name of Saint Anthony's grandfather. And Vicente is the name that invariably was given to the crows that inhabited the daily life of Lisbon, at the entrance of taverns and groceries.
Vicente is the name of a character in the literary project by José Sarmento de Matos, who has been invented Lisbon through that figure, leading us timelessly through memory's daydream. Vicente is the one that wins. And, now, Vicente is also the name of a project. Memory, myth, creativity, future, Vicente is the beat of unrest.



————————
Exhibition
————————

Curatorship Mário Caeiro Artistic interventions Simeon Nelson, Jana Matejkova, João Ribeiro + Carole Purnelle and Nuno Maia, André Banha Ermida da N.ª Sr.ª da Conceição September 10th to October 25th 2011 Opening hours Tuesday to Friday from 11.00 am to 17.00 pm, closed for lunch from 13.00 pm to 14.00 pm. Saturday and Sunday from 14.00 to 18.00 pm. Closed on Mondays and Holidays Address Travessa do Marta Pinto, 21, 1300-390 Lisbon (perpendicular to the Rua de Belém) Press releases Fábia Fernandes – t. 213-637-700 – ermida@travessadaermida.com

————————
Vicente 2011
————————

Promoting entity Projecto Travessa da Ermida Project direction Eduardo Fernandes Production direction Fábia Fernandes Production Patrícia Craveiro Lopes Concept Mário Caeiro Consulting José Sarmento de Matos Design Silvadesigners Plastic artists Simeon Nelson, João Ribeiro + Nuno Maya & Carole Purnelle, Jana Matejkova, André Banha Authors Mário Caeiro, José Sarmento de Matos, Luís de Oliveira e Silva, Nelson Guerreiro, Pedro Gadanho

————————

Organization Projecto Travessa da Ermida
Sponsoring Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, EGEAC, Turismo de Portugal, Junta de Freguesia de Santa Maria de Belém, Jardim Botânico Tropical, Pensão Setubalense, University of Hertfordshire

————————————————————————

WWW.TRAVESSADAERMIDA.COM