About

Jardins Efémeros (JE; Ephemeral Gardens) is a multidisciplinary cultural happening organized in the town of Viseu, Portugal, with a strong experimental component, which aims to enhance the connection and interface between the numerous agents who make “Viseu happen”, (city, artists, curators, researchers, universities, cultural, social, commercial and touristic organizations; companies, museums, citizens and even its visitors).

The theoretical assumptions which sustain the basic principles of its rationale materializes in the creative transformation of the perception of what the city is and what it could be, in the relationship between local, national and international creators; in the construction of collaborations between the public and the private sector and the creators from the most diverse areas; and in the enhancement of competences and happenings never created before.

All of this in the idyllic scenery of a new idea of garden set in the granite squares, which reaffirm its innovative and creative character in the country’s national scene, concerning the cultural production that includes the interaction and transforming ability of the landscape of the historical center of Viseu. (Centro Histórico de Viseu, CHV).

The programme includes the reflection on values such as active citizenship and social architecture, increasing critical and original ability; artistic expressions, performances in sound and visual arts, which the population hardly ever has access to in a public space.

These values are stable and result from a cautious urban contemporary and experimental programme and art direction, which rely on the continued contribution of several creators, researchers, universities, social workers, companies and organizations within the scope of a variety of areas such as: Visual Arts, Architecture, Cinema, Sound, Dance, Theatre, Metropolis, Markets and Workshops.

Although this is only its eight edition, Jardins Efémeros is already a brand of the town. It has been affirming itself as one of the most cutting-edge and singular national and international cultural productions in its eight years of existence. Its original format is planned for the town of Viseu, and its multidisciplinary and experimental configuration has no other comparable project in Portugal.

PROFESSORES E INSTITUIÇÕES DO DISTRITO DE VISEU COM SERVIÇO EDUCATIVO

Estão abertas as inscrições para o programa exclusivo de oficinas para escolas, ATL’s e instituições sociais com serviço educativo.

(Object and subject; individual and universal; what is a body? How do we inhabit it?)

In the interface between external and internal realities of the body, between the experience and the perception of spaces, movement and meeting, language allows us to project and capture intent in our relation with the world – we inhabit it, we communicate, we get involved and we coinhabit. We move in a group and we are part of a collective “body”.

As circumscribed matter, the body can distinguish between the “self” and the “other”. But moved by and between drives, between an impulse that precedes it and the movement towards it, the body expands and contracts, freeing itself from all the obligations of an organism. It’s deformation is constrained only by the limits of its elasticity. In effort, it shows its strength and vulnerability. Moving between intervals and empty spaces, it inhabits the space that it leaves behind, which it contains and incorporates. It manipulates the limits of its own self-consciousness. It provides both knowledge and ignorance.

With its symbolic charge, the body contemplates a vast and dynamic scope and flow of meanings. Highly polarized, it is the target of prejudice and discrimination. It is an object of intervention by the state; an economic, social and cultural resource and capital. It is under constant surveillance, digitization and analysis. It is instrumentalized. In accordance with the preconceptions about the body, social relations, institutions and ideologies impose, categorize, sometimes dominate and even physically transform the bodies that they rule, as well as their behaviours. In a constant tension between mechanisms of power and resistance techniques, the body denounces abuse, ambivalences and contradictions. To whom does the body belong after all? To the individual? To the state? To society?

In exhibition, bodies try to recover their dominion and freedom. Never before has the human body been so visible. The representations of this omnipresence and multiplicity are reinforced and amplified by the new digital technologies and globalized practices like public share of activities, interactions, conversations and migrations.

However, not all bodies are equally visible. Some bodies are hyperexposed while others disappear, escape from popular culture or just don’t want to be seen. None exposes itself thoroughly. Some are clearly less recognized, if not marginalized. Many fight for their dignity. All of them take part of the politics of difference. They instigate and fight the proliferation of claims based on sexuality, religion, ethnicity and nationality.

They collide. Latent in the concrete and finite records of the movement of their combat, equally attached to a temporality whose future deteriorates, they try to overcome their own limits and those that are imposed on them. They elect and repeat the most banal and insignificant daily actions as an exorcism of the actions they contain.

In tumbledown imbalance, they (re)invent themselves and participate in the constructions of their identities. They desire, fear, violate, pacify, love, create.

The body as a vehicle for artistic discourses.

Welcome, bodies.