In Portugal, using art as a social inclusion instrument
Art as an instrument of social inclusion – this is the motto of the Fundação EDP Public Art programme. Focused on sparsely populated territories across the country, this project aims to provide access to art and involve the population in new cultural experiences, as well as encourage local development through the creation of works of public art in rural areas.
Curated by the EDP Foundation, artists are invited to develop a process of collaboration with local populations, encouraging them to participate in community assemblies to discuss artistic intervention proposals to be carried out in public spaces (facades of buildings, walls, transformation of E-Redes, etc.).
The project foresees partnerships with official institutions and local communities linked to the arts. These partners are invited to collaborate from the initial phase of the projects to their implementation, with the aim of also supporting the promotion and dissemination of public art routes created locally. "The Fundação EDP Public Art program aims to occupy the streets with art designed and made in common, collaborative and direct without being simple, with social intentions, animating the communities that host it, integrating a direct public circuit, forming an integral part of the landscape of a place, an art common to that place", details João Pinharanda, curator of this initiative.
Started in 2015, the project is already present in 31 locations - in the Algarve, Alentejo, Ribatejo, Médio-Tejo and Trás-os-Montes, Alto Douro, Minho and Beira Baixa. Xana, Alexandre Farto aka Vhils, Luís Silveirinha, Manuel João Vieira, Mariana A Miserável and Menau are some of the approximately 50 artists and collectives who signed the 139 interventions carried out on the ground.
Once the project has been completed in each nucleus, the EDP Foundation publishes a roadmap with a map of the interventions carried out and the respective artists. These itineraries are offered to local entities as a tool for communicating this public art heritage. All scripts are also available on the Fundação EDP website, for free download.
