CELESTIAL BODIES is an informal meeting that shares creative practices. Artists from abroad meet local artists, and together they undertake actions that are shared and carried out with the entire group and with the local community. Practices of walking, pottery, building, collecting, dancing, reading, dreaming together, that take place in studio and in public spaces.
Centro de Experimentação Artística do Vale da Amoreira and Alkantara, in Portugal, were the local partners in the 2021 edition. Both hosted the meeting, bridging the team and the local communities. Paula Diogo (PT) and Lígia Soares (PT), were responsible for the curatorship in this edition and gathered a diverse group of Portuguese participants who met for tem days of shared creative practices, processes and conversations.
CELESTIAL BODIES is a mobile platform that brings together artists from diferente nationalities and backgrounds, wielding cultural and artistic practices as powerful tools for fostering political consciousness and imagination by bringing them into the social sphere.
“We consider fragility and vulnerability to be core qualities in the process of life and art. To us, solidarity means to ally with each other’s vulnerabilities. We want to create safe spaces to experiment with ideas that become more tangible as we share them. In this way we grow a community of artists with a focus on the journey and not on a specific outcome.”
Concept and Coordination Celestial Bodies e Má-Criação Celestial Bodies Ellen Vanderstraeten, Elsa Mencagli, Íris Stefanía Skúladóttir, María Arnardóttir, Nora Tormann, Zofia Tomczyk and Paula Diogo Invited Artists 2021 Alegria Gomes, Gisela Casimiro, Isabel Costa, Isabél Zuaa, Lígia Soares, Maurícia Barreira Neves, Rafaela Jacinto, Rolaisa Embaló, Vania Doutel Vaz e Rama em Flor – Festival Comunitário Feminista Queer Curatorship 2021 Paula Diogo and Lígia Soares Graphic Design and Drawings Elsa Mencagli Texts Elsa Mencagli, Gisela Casimiro, Isabel Costa, Lígia Soares, Nora Tormann, Paula Diogo, Rafaela Jacinto and Zofia Tomczyk Translation Joana Frazão Photography João Tuna Executive Production Vanda Cerejo Communication Carlos Alves
Printing Maiadouro Production Má-Criação Partners Alkantara and Centro de Experimentação Artística do Vale da Amoreira/Moita Support CML | Polo Cultural Gaivotas – Boavista Institutional Partner República Portuguesa – Ministério da Cultura Project financed bythe Portuguese Republic – Culture / Directorate-General for the Arts / Internationalization Support Program
Má-Criação is a structure supported by the Lisbon City Council and housed in Alkantara
Paula Diogo’s work is supported by apap – FEMINIST FUTURES – a project co-funded by the Creative Europe Program of the European Union
Thanks to Carla Nobre de Sousa, Daniela Ribeiro, David Cabecinha, Eva Rún Snorradóttir, Gundega Laivina, Isabel Batata Doce, Jeff Lombard, Mara Andrade, Marta Espiridião, Rafaela Santos, Sinara Suzin, Silvana Barbarini, Sofia Figueiredo, Vânia Rodrigues and Vânia Rovisco
TEASER
The two publications bringing together texts from the participants in the meetings are now available: CELESTIAL BODIES Portugal 2021 (PT/EN) and CELESTIAL BODIES Resonances 2022 (PT/EN/IT). You can order a high-resolution version and more information via email ma.criacao.comunicacao@gmail.com