Jiu Xian Garden Village

start of project

year workshop

year old village

+ 0

districts

inhabitants

students

introduction & concept

"DaST’s proposition, in Jiu Xian rural village located in the southern part of China is to integrate through a new systemic approach to social,economical and environmental challenges, the principles of sustainable design"

The 3 Year Workshop

i.e dealing with the life cycle management process, meaning that DaST team is addressing all questions linked to policy in regard of what we know about the Sciences of the Earth, the Human fundamental needs, the necessity to share the natural ressources and knowledge all mingled within the Cultural and Historical background of this old Ming village and its surroundings DaST has designed a compass to help understanding its purpose.

In order to share more knowledge it has been decided that the Jiu Xian Garden Village project would be done through workshops open to the best students in Architecture and Landscape of the South China University of Technology in Guangzhou and associate the local population The workshops intend to confront the students frontaly to sustainable issues / reality / the rural chinese world / National Héritage / conservation / restoration. The decision to work with the local population came from the understanding that: «Jiu Xian Garden Village «would become a success if they handled the project as their own 1st year objective.

We dedicated our first year to a global inventory and found that Jiu Xian was managed in an almost far more advanced sustainable way than the best existing projects but using very little access to high end technologies meaning that Jiu Xian in its présent structure had a really limited possibility to go forward within the to-day rules leading all processes.

production structure

All productive natural assets in Jiu Xian are divided by the number of inhabitants each inhabitant has been granted by the state (at the beginning of the second half of the 20th century )a leasehold on a pièce of arable land of 1 mu(667m2)on which they produce either 2 crops of rice a year or fruits, plus grass and vegetables on the borders, nutrients for the soils come mainly from the manure of the cattle, rice straw and oysters shells each family was granted ,as an average, a pond of approximately 100sqm to breed fishes for one very nice meal a week.

Fish are fed with the grass from the paddy fields Each family breeds also 1 pig or 2, a few chickens and ducks for the meat and the eggs and a buffalo for working the fields all cooking wastes are reused to feed the animals or nurture the land the irrigation system is very efficient and the water fairly shared collective land (3000 mus of non arable land) provides wood for cooking purposes and all the médicinal plants needed to cure most of the illness plus added pastures for goats the Yulong river that crosses the land of the different communities is used as a touristic waterway and the profit are split between the villages according to the length of the river crossing their land and then, shared between the inhabitants of each village, in equal parts as a result of this clever management process the biodiversity is respected and each family produces twice their vital needs.

Surplusses are sold to the markets nearby to buy clothes, little tools and all the traditionnal products they need for their celebrations but the information and dreams provided by the tv channels or by travelling to the nearby big cities Yangshuo, Guilin, Nanning make them wish a different type of life. They just see their income 300 euros per year compared to the average one in the cities 1200 to 3000 euros without understanding the pressure and all costs associated to it. They neither perceive the quality of their life and the huge freedom they benefit , nor the importance of their work and knowledge (feeding the big cities,keeping the soils and the biodiversity in good shape, absorbing lots of co2,aso) Nobody helped them understand the changes the model needed.

Move from quantity to quality
A fair balance between rural population weight/% of GNP
Keeping the soils fertility
Keeping and increasing biodiversity
Offsetting cities co2 emissions
Securing chinese food independance
Keeping the water clean
Offering jobs for many
Family organization

The family organisation is very simple (originate from the confucianism) the oldest man in the family rules The youngest help the oldest as soon as these are unable to provide for their needs The girls stay in their family all their life even when married.

All different generations of one family live under the same roof. And help each other The design of each house modern or old is the same The husband of a new couple must follow his wife and live under her family’s roof If the new husband or the new wife is coming from another village and if there are more arable land available they will be granted one «mu» as for the other members of the community,same thing for the newly born on the contrary,if there is not enough arable land they will have to find a job else where or create a new activity in the village Here again they believe it’s easier to live in big cities for privacy reasons, not understanding that the way they live in the village is truly sustainable.

political organization

"The political organisation is also an astounding example of shared responsability"

The political organisation is also an astounding example of shared responsability. In the case of Jiu Xian, 1250 inhabitants, there are 15 districts, each district is a specific and geographical unit of balanced production. Each district elects every 4 years a representant. Once elected, the new Council will decide who is going to be in charge of the finance, the education, the roads, the natality, aso. At that stage the members of the council have to be approved by the communist party (which, usually, they are) The communist party also has an office and 1 or 2 non elected representants in jiu Xian Any problem/question arising is always settled , fast, in a peaceful way, during a meeting or several ones that may last hours The objective being to keep the harmony within the community We happened to have some dificult problems at different times and they all have been solved, the same day or the following days in a nice and fair way.

education

Jiu Xian has a school for kids aged 4 to 14 265 students learn chinese mandarin and everything that is requested by the authorities (as in all other countries),except the real meaning of rural life ,a real luxury today and an absolute need to keep countries alive and prosperous on the long term the result being that the younger population has just one wish, leave the village and find a better paid job anywhere else.

health

In the village almost everyone knows the proprieties of the médicinal plants and has a fair knowledge of the TCM- Traditional Chinese Medicine – principles The food is very healthy and participate entirely in keeping the population in good shape Almost every one knows how to do massages and baths ,and, if not, their neighbors will know and help.
At the end of this short and limited inventory the questions that arise are very simple and awfully complex at the same time.
How to keep the best things and bring some new operative methods. How to keep the population at work with the vision of their noble and vital role.
How to increase their income and life conditions while increasing the biodiversity, the quality of soils and waters what a lucky challenge for the DaST team second year objectives third year objectives.

birth of the project

Fernando Pessoa’s words flashed in my mind…:

"Qualidade distinctivamente humanas

As de imaginação em vez de saber

De jogo em vez de trabalho

da totalidade em vez da separação"

Fernando Pessoa
Portuguese 20th century poet

From that day on, our DaST team, in charge of the Jiu Xian Garden Village project found the necessary energy to accomplish the task, even if that meant revising all its previous plans.
It, suddenly, seemed urgent to mingle Jiu Xian’s inhabitants with more people from other countries, speaking different languages, living in an entirely different stage of development and with artists who would enable them to capture the beauty of their surroundings.
But above all I felt that launching these artists in the midst of a civilization so different from their own could but be a thrilling experience to them.
The whole DaST (Design a Sustainable Tomorrow) team set to work intensively. We succeeded in increasing the construction capacity at the different work sites by giving the carpenters, masons, electricians and bamboo experts, greater responsibility and by increasing the number of workers at each site.

We also had to adapt the program altering temporarily what the health centre was intended for, enabling it to shelter the artists in case of bad weather, modify the structure of the exhibition rooms and alter the design of the tea-house, Without compromising in quality the access paths to the site. We reviewed and improved the design allowing it to be used two ways, one lane for visitors and one for buffalos.

The DaST workshops became more and more frequent, all the drawings were updated in real time, the logos and the costumes were designed, executive summaries and three books describing the stages of the project were also written. Above all, Goncalo proposal made us think more deeply,about some of the processes. Introducing more f lexibility, Professor Bao, Professor Feng Shu, Professor Jia Yun, Gerhy, Gao Wei, Lee Ziruo, Li Bo, Li Ming Zheng, Ma Tian Tian, Maoeraichiyu, Su Yi, Captain Wu, Vena, Joyce, Ye Ziteng i. e. Gaston, Xiao Xiao, Sissi, Swordman, Hugo, Yiping, Sandiamano, Fat, Feng Da Da as well and many others were at their best.

In the end, a house from the Ming village, had to be restored to receive the visitors and to work as the exhibition room where the project was to be presented.

In order to do so, old restoration materials had to be found, the roof and framework rebuilt, the walls cleaned and plastered with lime mortar tinted with natural pigments, electricity and the lighting system installed, the rainwater sewers cleaned and restored surveyed and Mr Li´s permission granted to connect the installations to his water and electrical metre.

We were fortunate to have an English born architect, Ian, joining our reduced team due to the departure of Mr Lu and his foreman in July. It was a great pleasure to witness the community becoming fully involved even if it turned out to be difficult some days to manage the different teams working on the site as every villager wanted to help, but it was really impossible to have more than 45 workers at the same time.

Ian’s great qualities, chinese fluent-good listener, his amiable spirit and highly efficient common sense worked wonders. He managed to organize the teams to work in turns improving the quality of life and involvement in the project of a great many families in the village.

In the beginning of September there was a major meeting in Canton with the “Dasters” at the SCUT (South China University of Technology) to present a progress report and discuss the best way to organize the Residence. The following aspects were critical to the adaptation/ integration/happiness of the artists and as a result the success of the residence.

The language issue, the relation with the villagers, the importance of including school children in the project bring the artists to discover the beauty of this region of China were essential.

In order to do so it was decided that the artists should be able, at any time, to explore the surroundings i.e., finding drivers and translators knowing China, its customs and its history, provide the artists full access to the materials and skills they might need. This was a real sensitive issue since it could range from the request for a Grand Steinway, a steel foundry, a pottery with a 40m long furnace, a stonework factory, a carpenter’s shop, a scaffolding company, and obviously canvasses, paper and pencils…

The meals and the festivities had to be organized: fireworks, a play, a fashion show, a concert and the exhibitions. We had to inform the public authorities, invite the villagers and the officials, our friends and all those who supported the project and also make the most of the rain and the cold weather.

I must say that Yivi, Lizzie, Sissi and Wang Xi were fabulous, awfully efficient and always gentle. If it hadn’t been for them and for Nicolas always present everywhere and ready to help, the residence wouldn’t have been such a success.

A few days before the opening we were told that two of our friends, the piano Maestro Elisha Abas and the poet Howard Altmann were unable to join the group. The piano had to be cancelled!!!! and Professor Feng Shu suggested to replace the piano concert by a Guqin concert. Duma Siran joined us a few days later and our days were filled with her music.

Gonçalo’s challenge was really hard to match but transformed our year in Jiu Xian in a fabulous one. Thank you Gonçalo.

Frederic Coustols
Founder & Mentor of DaST Foundation

about site specific

"We work on the infinite universe of construction and detail which, although can be ephemeris and condemned to the rhythm of a cycle, will always mark our memory or the work of art, which can only be revealed at a certain hour and a certain day."

land art 2009

The concept of site specific is about the reflection of the work of art as part of a certain place or environment where the connection between the artistic concept should communicate with the surrounding and those who live among it.

In LandArt we seek to feel and work in harmony with the earths cycles, as for its nature, population, animals, matter, and all unlimited possibilities that result as a fusion and complementary of these elements in the search of creative processes that offer us the possibility to feel and contemplate the universe that surrounds us in its different rhythms.

We work on the infinite universe of construction and detail which, although can be ephemeris and condemned to the rhythm of a cycle, will always mark our memory or the work of art, which can only be revealed at a certain hour and a certain day.

LandArt appeared during the 60’s of the 20th century going against the minimalism and all sophisticated technologies of the cultural industries, and forward the increasing awareness regarding environment issues. We can consider that Man, since always, felt enchanted by the innumerous choices of creation that Nature has provided.

Through the innumerous works conceived in the distant past, as for Stonehenge from England in 3100 b.c., or in the landscape architecture of the 18th century, we can say that we have already dived in the LandArt reality where we could witness Mans desire to exceed himself in the search of a greater intimacy with Mother Nature, in search of the perfect symbiosis.

selection of artists

Selecting the Portuguese and other international artists was definitely an interesting challenge. The cohesion of the group was of the utmost importance, so artists were chosen, not just for their creative abilities, but for their ability to unify those around them. We started by inviting the director and photographer Denis Piel, who had already worked with the farmers in JiuXian, as well as Michel Batlle, who is a performer, writer, painter and creator of the Psychophysiographie movement, an artist who presents a vast line of works as a critic and as an editor in contemporary art.
Besides both of these artists we had also guaranteed the participation of a Portuguese LandArt artist, painter and photographer, Maria Mendonça Coustols; a Portuguese video art artist and photographer, Marta Alvim; and the Chinese instrumentalist and composer, Duma Siran.
For the selection of Portuguese artists we worked with our national partner on this first residence in JiuXian, ArtistLevel.org, with whom we organized a jury of distinct personalities and renowned professionals from within the art world. The 2009 jury was composed by Frederic Coustols (DaST), Verónica Metello (at the time representing ArtistLevel.org), Luís Geraldes (IPJ), Pedro Soares (at the time representing Museu do Oriente), Gonçalo Leandro (WOA), and Professors Feng Shu and Feng Shiang for the selection of the musicians. The selection appeared to be just perfect: Marina Carvalho, Sara Yang, Filipa Silveira, Tim Madeira, Rui Pinto Gonçalves and Vasco Luz, they were not only totally commited to the project but they shown all along the residence a strong sence of humanity. What they produced during this month was just astonishing. It was the shared living experience we had dreamed of from the beginning, going beyond our best expectations. In their own words, they felt the experience exceptional.

Gonçalo Leandro
Founder of Way of Arts & Co-coordinator of the Jiu Xian Artist in Residence

Duman Siran performance playing the Guqin, which she has been perfecting since the age of 13.

Denis Piel

Denis is a photographer, filmmaker, writer and artist who also acts as a consultant to creative projects around the world.
Denis Piel earned an international reputation for his beauty, fashion and celebrity spreads for glossy magazines as well as for directing stylish commercials, and for his fine art works with projects like Platescapes or Facescapes, winning many international awards including the coveted Leica Award of Excellence.
At the moment and beside his intense work on his fine arts projects, Denis organizes with his wife Elaine Merkus the Culture & Culture Festival www.culturecultures.org

"Unlike the other artists who came to JuXian I was not a novice to the village. This was my third visit to JiuXian. My first visit was with Frederic Coustols when he invited my to join him on a visit of exploration. We had a mutual interest in discovering a village in China, me my FACESCAPES project, and he the development of an eco village. In our travels we found many wonderful places but when we found JiuXian it was obviously the right place for both of us. The place was stunningly beautiful, there were enough historical buildings still intact and the people were receptive. My needs were simple, to interview, film and photograph the people as part of my larger Facescapes project. "

Denis Piel
Photographer & Filmaker

”FACESCAPES where I follow a humanist tradition of getting in close on the subject, creating landscapes of faces, faces as a field, revealing contours and valleys like an aerial view of any terrain. But behind these abstractions my desire is to reveal the commonality of the human condition, a way of looking at the mileage of the human clock.”

It would be our village mine for Facescapes, and Frederic for his eco village.

Nine months later I returned for a month to produce my China FACESCAPES with my Australian – Chinese interpreter and a sound and camera assistant. The project went very well, meeting, filming and interviewing the locals. However I never totally finished my interviews as I fell ill and had to be shipped off to Hong Kong where I spent three weeks recovering. But I had achieved my objective despite not totally finishing all the interviews and film that I had planned.

A year later Frederic had almost fully developed his amazing project. Within the concept of his project was an artist in residence site. When Goncalo Leandro from WOA who was organising the residency asked me if I would like to nominate two artists to join them. I immediately included myself as well as Michel Batlle one of the local artist I had been working within the PADIES artist in residency program. I was very curious to see how the project had developed and what changes it had bought to the village. It was also an excellent opportunity for me to explore an idea I had wanted to expand for FACESCAPES.

What was wonderful was to see the enthusiasm and inspiration that the artists felt in discovering JiuXian and China. There is no doubt that for the artists to develop a project in China, especially under an artist in residence program such as being developed in JiuXian was a tremendous opportunity. All the resources are available, scale is virtually limitless and costs are comically low so an artist can avail himself of material, skill sets both practical and technical that would be economically impossible for most of these artists in their home. The artists threw themselves at this opportunity. The sense of community was very strong with support for each other’s ideas and work, each developing their unique approach.

I was more the observer. The isolation of the village gave me an opportunity to reflect on how I wanted to move forward and also participate in the concept of land art that was the goal of the residency. Whilst exploring my concept for FACESCAPES I availed myself of the opportunity to film some local events, a funeral, a school visit and the artists at work as well as local life. Through these observations I developed the concept for an installation piece that would incorporate Facescapes, the village and the mystic that surrounds it. I recorded local stories of mysticism and myth of the mountains which I’ll mix with the sounds of nature especially the sounds of the ever flowing water unique to this village, all this to be incorporated into the installation through multiple projections and sound bites within a symbolic room of five meters square. It is an exciting project. I managed to collect enough material for the project.

Now away from the quiet of JiuXian I need to find the time to fulfil this ambitious project. I believe it will immerse the spectator into the energy of the village, it’s peacefulness, its beauty, its people and it’s mysticism.

To achieve this would make the JiuXian experience totally perfect.

Denis Piel
Photographer & Filmaker

Duma Siran

Duman Siran, born on December 1991, grew up with her family and leads a rural life in the countryside, where her entire family works with pottery.
Instead of joining the chinese school, Duma was educated by her parents.
Duma performed for the first time when she was 13 years old and she has improved her learning on Guqin since then. Her teacher, Xie Dongxiao, is the deputy leader of the Canton Guqin Research Institute, where she also workes as a researcher. Duma also worked for two years as an independent journalist for a magazine company.
During the last years Duma has been a soloist for a series of performances as her talent in music seems to attract many people.

Filipa Silveira

Filipa Silveira, born in 1978, developed a basic graduation in jewelry and in decorative arts, at Ar.Co, in 2007, as she also completed the course of Artistic Formation at the Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes, in 2003. At the moment, she’s in the 3rd year of sculpture at the Faculdade de Belas Artes da Unversidade de Lisboa. Filipa’s professional and artistic paths count with the participation in numerous solo and collective exhibitions, as her drawing and molding expressions transport us to a world where we encounter controlled and decelerated explosions by the fluidity of her imagination.

A Continuation of Myself

I was inspired by a drawing I made with Indian ink.
This drawing, with its embryonic and somewhat anthropomorphic form, seems to indicate life and death.
When we are born, we are certain that our bodies will be returned to the earth.
The earth and its microscopic thousands of inhabitants will take care of consuming us.
The spirit is returned to the universe.
The spirit is always in the universe.
When we are alive and made of matter, it is within our bodies.
Like a drawing outlined in charcoal.
When we die, the spirit flies to the cosmos.
Like a drawing submerged in water, the charcoal dissolves.
It spreads.
We are reborn.

In the universe, everything comes and goes.
Like the tides of a giant sea.
It is a place of meditation, of being, of coexistence, where we find ourselves, where we make our wishes, to the sound of the melody of bamboo reeds.
We also blow and whistle our wishes through a reed.
We blow to the wind, to God, to the mountains.
In Jiuxian, a paradisiacal diamond in southern China, in the heart of Guilin.
In a valley where the echo is powerful, we can also shout them out.
I started to apply the drawing with stones on the ground.
On the grass.
A drawing in which I placed stones in a continuous line.
In the form of a contour.

The beginning of a great journey.
A continuation of myself.
The stones placed one by one.
Fitting them deliberately, as if it were a gigantic puzzle.
A drawing-pencil-paper.
A drawing-stones-grass-earth.
A strong, heavy, ephemeral combination, returned to time.
The solitude.
The reeds whistle melodies to the mountains, which look at me every day.
They are attentive spectators, repeating what I say, the noise I make with the stones, or the music from the bamboo reeds.
They return the sounds that enter my ears and inspire me in the composition of nature.

I felt welcomed by nature.
A deep love takes hold of me.
The giant mosaic takes shape, color, life, visitors, bison, bees, and dogs, and all the fauna.
It is working with what nature gives us.
A continuation of myself.

Filipa Silveira
Creative Artist & Sculpture Artist

Maria Mendonça

Maria, a mother of 3 and for now a grandmother of 7, photographs, paints and sculpts with nature.
Her art is transversal as each of Maria’s personal and professioal steps are an extension to her artistic world, which is reflected in all that surrounds her.
She presented a few private exhibits at Hotel de Vibraye Paris 1981; Castelnau des Fieumarcon, France 2002; Palacio Belmonte, Lisbon, 2003; Palais du Gouverneur, Lectoure , France 2004; and participated in several collective exhibitions in Parede, Portugal 1973; Way of Arts, 2004, (installation); Way of Arts, 2005, (paintings).
Private collections in Portugal, France, Italy, Great Britain, USA, Australia.

“This last residence in China,
in Jiu Xian Garden Village,
in a lost age,
surrounded by the rivers ,
the mountains
the gentleness of the farmers
Lao Tseu in every corner of your mind
Made me enter in another universe
Where I felt totally in myself in this text written hundred years ago by F Pessoa
Time and things have a different meaning
You don’t want to include Time in your scheme.
You don’t want to think of things as time – bound, you want to
Think of them as things.
You don’t want to separate them from themselves,treating
Them as things present.
you shouldn’t even treat them as real things,
you shouldn’t treat them as anything-
You should see them, just see them
See them until you can’t think about them,
See them, without time or space,
See and be able to put aside all but the seeable.”

Maria Mendonça Coustols
Photographer & Plastic Artist

Marina Carvalho

Marina Carvalho, born in 1981, graduated in sculpture at Faculdade de Belas Artes do Porto, in 2008/2009, and has a piano degree from the Academia de Música de Santa Maria da Feira. Both her professional and artistic paths are characterized by her multidisciplinary skills where, beyond her education in a diversity of artstic means, she also participated in an artistic residencie in Turkey, developed art-therapy work with handycap childreen in Israel, and participated in a series of international workshops and conferences.
Marina also teaches art and music to childreen.

"The Land Art JiuXian artist residency revealed a great dynamism and involvement between art, nature, and community. It was a unique environment of collaborative and sustainable work, which outlined new questions, new perspectives, and new artistic challenges. I believe that in a dynamic community, communication and the expression of feelings and needs are central to developing collective work aimed at a better future. In this sense, the artistic experience can mobilize communities to be active in their own development. What impressed me most about this project was the beauty of its imperfection. Embracing the human being with their mistakes and limitations without pretension, while simultaneously embracing dreams, desires, and all superhuman abilities without modesty. This project created an extremely vibrant and dynamic network of human relationships between locals, outsiders, Chinese, foreigners, people, and entities. JiuXian Garden Village is a visionary future in the present, human and true. Thank you very much to all the people who have given and will continue to give life to this project."

Fēi cháng găn xiè!

Marina Carvalho
Multidisciplinary Sculpture Artist

My Encounter with the Èr Yuè Xià Valley (End of February)

Pine trees wind through the mountains and valleys of JiuXian. The wind embraces time, speaking through the leaves, bamboos, rocks… Here, everything is time and space. Here, I think of music in sculpture.

I work with matter in its spatial and bodily dimension, in a relationship of rhythms, textures, densities, frequencies, colors, exploring the musical rhythm created by the progressions of the Fibonacci numerical series. I explore the Fibonacci series as a musical scale, where the musical notes are analogous to the bodies I create. Bodies situated in time and space. A C or a G, or a set of musical notes are volumes, they have a certain density, a certain frequency, mass, weight, dimension, form, color, timbre, texture.

Working with this musical dynamic in sculpture was a challenge. Land Art requires a true experience of matter, time, and space. In JiuXian, these elements presented themselves as something new to me—climate, geology, nature, culture, flavors, aromas, habits, and rhythms that I had never experienced before. With such a warm reception, the embrace of that unique landscape, the great enthusiasm that vibrated within all of us, the initial idea for my work easily emerged. But I soon realized that I hadn’t yet shed my old self. Surrendering to the present, being able to experience time without relating it to what I already knew, entering the pulse of life in a distant land. This surrender took time; it wasn’t a leap with closed eyes, but rather a process of adaptation that gradually closed the distances. As Zeng Weijun, the head chef of JiuXian, said, “art is life, and life is art.” In this sense, the process of my work was the process of my life in JiuXian.

From frustration, new ideas were born until the essential was consolidated: bamboo as matter and the nature that interacts with it. Bamboo is extremely versatile; it is light and strong, hard and flexible, fast-growing, and long-lasting. From macro to micro, bamboo is everywhere. It takes shape in household objects, musical instruments, in the construction of buildings… Bamboo is as present here as water or the air we breathe. Everything is made with bamboo.

I nourished myself with local traditions and recreated them. I described, corporeally, in two moments, the traditions I experienced. The two moments are materially and technologically similar, but combined in different ways. In the first moment, *Fēng zhī dí*, the bamboo dialogues with the wind and with the people who participate, touching them. The circular space embraces the visual rhythm of the bamboos, the people who interact with them, and their sounds. The sound of the wind in the bamboo. The passing time that leaves marks. The sun, the mountains… In the second moment, *Yŭ zhī dí*, the bamboo dialogues with the rain, with the mountain that breathes with it, with the rock and the different colors that inhabit it, with the breeze and the winds that pass by, with time… In both, the bamboo interacts with the climate that shapes nature and reveals the passage of time. The time that makes matter vibrate but also wears it down. The time that lives, and its end.

Marina Carvalho
Multidisciplinary Sculpture Artist

Marta Alvim

Marta Alvim, (born 1979) is a Portuguese artist and film director.
Marta graduated from the School of Arts department in the Portuguese Catholic University (Oporto/2002) with a Master specialization in Film.
Her work reflects specificities and convergences of artistic practices between New Cinema and Contemporary Art. Through video, installation and photography, she explores art practices and their critical purposes. In the last 4 years she participated in artist in residence programs in France, China and Spain.
One of her experimental films has won a Remy Silver Award in the independent film festival WorldFest Huston (USA). Marta’s work until now spoke about perception, sense of reality, consciousness, identity and society.
Lisbon Science University (PT) and New Media Lab- Mideciant, from Castilla La Mancha University (SP), supporting some of her current work.

"I didn't expect to visit China so soon, despite always having felt a genuine attraction to the East. This attraction, which is common to many Westerners, was also accompanied by a deep sense of inertia—the inertia of someone who knows they are about to embark on a wonderful and exhausting journey. An open, demanding, and vivid journey, where we feel awake day and night, because when we are not observing, we are internalizing, becoming aware, reconstructing the self, which is another way of saying we expand this database of ours called consciousness and, consequently, we change. We change a little. And when we return, we are a bit different."

Marta Alvim
Artist & Film Director

When I received the invitation from my friend Gonçalo Leandro to develop a Video Art project at the Jiùxiàn residency in China, I felt worried. I thought: this is it; I’ll have to wake up a little more. And so it was.

In the following days, I researched the area where I would be working. I thought it would be ideal to stay for some time so I could settle in and get to know a broader area of Chinese territory. I didn’t yet have a clear idea of what I would develop in terms of work, but that didn’t concern me because I knew that when I arrived, I would know what to do. There’s always something that naturally imposes itself, something that presents itself to us, and that’s what we need to talk about. I’ve always believed that through the work of observing the confrontation between our particularities and reality, we can reach the level of Universal language; a bit like Aristotle, who claimed to have found the Universal in the Particular, in the essence of things.

I entered and left through Shanghai. About 30 days passed between November and December. In between was the Southwest of China: the mountains, Dàli, Lìjiāng, the Black Dragon Pool, the commerce of Yángshuò, Tai Chi, and of course, Jiùxiàn—the residency.

I arrived on an icy day. Contrary to the weather forecasts that made me buy malaria pills, the temperature was far from tropical, barely reaching 10 degrees Celsius. The residency was well underway, with the artists working in the fields, in areas designated for Land Art projects. Everyone wore warm checkered pants that they had bought at a village market. They were a kind of all-purpose pants: they were worn for work and trips to town; worn over other clothes, they became part of the residency’s dress code, and any local could distinguish a residency artist from any other foreigner. I didn’t arrive in time to buy the checkered pants, but when the cold got worse, Maria Coustols, an artist and friend anyone would love to have, lent me hers, which I wore promptly, although I later learned they were pajama pants.

By choice, my stay at the residency would last about 10 days. I felt I had no time to lose and wanted to quickly start filming that place that inspired me with its enigma. The next day, I asked a guide to take me to the top of a mountain, and I prepared the camera, tripod, and memory cards.

The earth had a warm color, and there were giant bamboos swaying with the energy of the wind. I, influenced by the power of the collective subconscious, imagined myself at the tops of the trees, swaying in the sky’s emptiness, with my feet resting on thin, flexible branches, oscillating through the mist, through the white, humid, and silent vapor.

It smelled like late afternoon, with smoke rising from the village. The sun had begun its descent, and I was already nearing my destination. A new spectrum of light connected the mountains into a single silhouette. At the base, I could still distinguish the contours of the Ming rooftops.

At the top, there was only silence. Silence against me, who remained perplexed, my gaze fixed on the view before me.

I made this entire journey in the company of my husband Vasco, who, besides being an excellent assistant director, was the perfect travel companion. I’m grateful for his support. I also thank Gonçalo Leandro for the invitation and Maria and Frederic Coustols for the initiative. I would also like to say that in all the artists who participated in this residency, I recognize the spirit of teamwork, camaraderie, and great dedication to the project.

Marta Alvim
Artist & Film Director

Michel Batlle

In 1966, Michel Batlle created a completely new concept that combines art with the body in a “relationship between the body and the mind, expressed through graphic means,” which he named *psychophysiography*. Unlike most avant-garde movements that typically emerge with new ideas, *psychophysiography* offers a surgical and intuitive reading of the world, with the human body as its central focus. This “science” of inaccuracy and anatomical simulacrum justifies its existence due to the distance that artists at the time had from the human body as a fundamental basis of artistic research, not only in its spirituality but also in its physiology. It is the materialization of a field of exploration and research into the relationships between the physical and the intellectual, the instinctive and the visible world, along with all their combined sensations.

The Succession of Shadows

From one shadow to another,
Surpassing the shadow, falling back into it,
In successive existences, one after the other, starting over.
And these shadows that pursue each other, merging into darkness.
From their overlaps, night is born.

The river nourishes the mountain.
It rises, stretched by light,
Pushing its mineral entrails,
Rocks adorned with green wool,
Permanent green. Toward the sky.

Protrusions born from telluric chaos,
A massive velvet jaw,
A bulging massif, with outlines cut off from any horizon.
Men have taken refuge there, nourished themselves, multiplied, fought…
Each of these mountains has its uses, its folds, its curves, its mysteries,
Its passages of air and stories.
Here, a woman and her buffalo in the water of the rice field,
There, a fisherman standing on his bamboo raft.

These mountains were gods, an army planted and forever petrified,
Ready for battle, vigilant, immobile on their territory.
Man is at peace there, cultivating his gardens with repeated gestures, his millennia-old tools penetrating the rich, soft earth.
He moves from one square of water to another of fruit trees, a familiar labyrinth,
From one house to another, from the road to the forest.
The bamboos, vertical, flexible, and resonant, clash and vibrate in singular rhythms, punctuating the life of the damp fields.
Everyone knows the secret life of this aquatic world…

The shadow is born from light, it is the other side of the solar clash,
It cuts, fragments, slips its presence,
Plants its backlights for a unanimous darkness,
Giving way to the Milky Way.
But the night is not a burning coal; other shadows arrive on soft feet, revealing other forms, the usual passages of this indistinct whole…
Observing the cycle of shadows and light, the painter waits patiently, leaning against the rock.
The ink waits for the brush, the paper moist and tender…
Hours pass…
A bird, suddenly, streaks across the strange panorama with its flight.

Peoples or Minorities?

The different peoples that make up China are referred to as “minorities.”
This is the title of my painting created in JiuXian.
It follows my series from the early 1980s titled “The Cultural Wars.”
Every day, languages and cultures die out. Dominant ideologies, political powers, and commercial interests have brought populations into line with consumerism. Everything has become a market, even art!

In this triptych, the contrasts between natural and manufactured forms serve as evocative elements of these issues inherent to the evolution of our modern civilization. Its visual language is that of 20th-century art—gestural abstract painting, geometric and material art, figuration, writings (here, Lao Tzu’s poems in palimpsests painted by three different people).
There is no anecdote, except for the outlines of the mountains, which indicate the place where the painting was created.
It is a historical painting without a story, leaving the viewer free to interpret it as they wish; I hope they will feel the human tragedy I intended to evoke.

Michel Batlle
Sculpture Artist

Rui Pinto Gonçalves

Rui Pinto Gonçalves (b. 1963) is an architect by education and profession, with a degree by the Factulty of Architecture of the Lisbon Technical University, and founding partner of RRJ Arquitectos, an internationally active firm with head office in Lisbon. Traveller by vocation, humanist and ecologist by nature, Rui Pinto Gonçalves has developed architectural projects where environmental integration, self-sustainability and formal experimentation assume the structural theme.

"The relationship between Man and Nature has always been inseparable, but the connection between the two has undergone numerous and profound changes over time. If we move along the timeline, we can clearly observe these transformations."

Rui Pinto Gonçalves
Architect

In the past, we began from a phase of harmony and balance, where Man, a conscious being responsible for his actions, recognized the power of Nature in the Universe and acted according to its motivations, always keeping this premise in mind and using metaphysical explanations to address his doubts.
With the passage of time and the evolution of scientific and technical knowledge, Man began to feel an inappropriate sense of power over all things, wielded by those who lacked the sensitivity to manage it in the face of a greater entity—Nature. Spontaneous dynamics that established a matrix of natural order, which should have remained insurmountable, were sidelined. Man sought to dominate, transform, and control…

Today, our conscience compels us to stop and think, and to halt the machine that advances over Nature. Progress can and should continue, but in a Sustainable way that ensures the comfort of communities within a healthy context. It is crucial to protect resources with alternative strategies and to reverse the toxicity of modern developments.

Land Art is part of this moment of reflection.
This form of Art emerged in the 20th century when the definition of Art became more inclusive, manifesting in various forms of expression. It is an artistic gesture that emphasizes the scale of Nature, seeking to complement and balance it while respecting its essence. It is based on an equal relationship between Man and Nature, articulating the interaction between the two.

The village of Jiu Xian serves as a platform for this artistic expression, enriched by a natural landscape full of vitality and historical significance, with traces of ancient occupation that seem to have existed there forever.

However, despite this apparent balance, the need for the village to evolve is undeniable, for without it, its existence and longevity are threatened. No matter how great its value, if activities are not created to, first and foremost, retain the native population and then attract visitors, the village’s chances of survival will be slim.

This intervention plan should focus on investment paired with dynamism. The proposed strategy is to capitalize on the cultural and natural wealth of the region and direct it towards tourism through aspects such as:

Production and marketing of exceptional regional products, particularly in the fields of medicinal plants and abundant, high-quality food products like rice;
Application and promotion of traditional Eastern medicine therapies;
Exploration of local handicrafts;
Utilization of agricultural areas as settings for thematic tours;
Development of a unique and educational type of tourism, offering culturally rich experiences on-site.

It is crucial to infuse the village with a dynamic that is sustainable yet flexible enough to maintain the strength of its identity. Strategies must be defined and necessary tools established to ensure development that is immune to the loss of cultural identity and capable of maintaining ecological balance. The village must achieve a certain level of economic self-sufficiency to enable its ongoing maintenance without compromising its character.

The challenge of the intervention we propose is to add without overwhelming. It is to read what exists, affirm the message present in the spirit of the place, and safeguard its existence. It is to invisibly design the right thing on a solid foundation.

Rui Pinto Gonçalves
Architect

Sara Yan

Sara Chang Yan, born in 1982, mostly reveals her artistic expressions through drawing.
Currently, shes’s an assistant of the artist Rui Moreira. Her artistic path was balanced by her studies in architecture, at Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universdade Técnica de Lisboa, and by a drawing course at Ar.Co, of which she gave sequence by frequenting an advanced degree. Her work reveals a three dimensional organic tendency, through which we dive into a universe of symbols that we’re still discovering.

Arrival stay.
Feel see
hear to be

Dark night
Could see nothing, ground soil scent tree shadows.
Going interior land

China
strange language.
Foreigners
we and they

Light day. See all landscape. Self.
Cry, way made person to person , arrives until me.
At the table.
Interior happenings, Self found in substance and without it, presides strength.
Effort believed attempt beyond the substance, transform in substance following the our self way.
Have before, safety before. Base to jump. Before to be. Live.

Don’t know who I’m
Don’t know where I’m
Don’t know what things means
I only can see Feel, scent.
Listen what I hear.
The place is strong
I’m going to work
Find to be something.
Merge with world feel its strengths,
And found the parts in sense
that echoes the interiority alive in me.
Realize it.

Stay time between things, alive.
Form an idea felted
Inside me

In relation
Inside with Nature – Life – Universe

Sara Yan
Artist

Tim Madeira

Tim Madeira, born in 1955, is a multifaceted artist who studied at the Escola Superior de Belas Artes de Lisboa, completed a course in visual communication at Ar.Co and graduated in architecture at the Escola Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid, where he also studied free painting and statue drawing.
His solid background expresses itself through a work essentially anchored in assemblage, where the superposition and conjugation of different materials expresses a conceptual and formal approach, essentially characterized by an uncomplexed free maturity.

Signs of the Present Time

Tim Madeira erected signs and confronted them with the imposing nature in a disproportionate face-to-face encounter; like objects from a contemporary archaeology, reflecting certain aspects of what we produce, remnants of our time.

Thus, gathered around trunks, planted on wooden masts, in bunches of metal shavings, blunt iron fragments, and ceramic objects extracted from a clay mix and other unusual materials from our consumption, they are, as Fernando Pessoa wrote, “Fruits of useful iron from the cosmopolitan factory-tree!”

Although Tim’s creative process might resemble that of his Pop Art predecessors, he renews it by displacing it from its known context to make it a disturbing element within nature.

These are sculptures but also Land Art, where the signs planted on the mountainsides are not merely seen as art objects but as triggers for opening up and gaining a new perspective on the landscape.

In a way, it represents an “integration/disturbance” to better articulate what nature knows about itself but can only express with modest, imperceptible, and natural words.

Thus, the artificial produced through his recovery of objects will speak in its language, born from electric fusions, a part of what we should discover there, namely, the humanity of the landscape.

Michel Batlle
Sculpture Artist

"I have a small grove in distant lands of the East..."

**For immense respect …**

…for the dream of a man and a woman who allowed others to dream as well.

To Iiwi, my flower who still doesn’t believe that I didn’t have a project.

To Sissi, with her enigmatic smile that is so captivating.

To Lizzie, with her writing that continues to accompany me through past and future memories yet to come.

To Wang, who translated an entire project and 26 character dedications.

To Jason Chen, with respect.

To Tatoo, so green and so distant…

To Duma, an unusual delight in moments of nostalgia.

To Marta, so many photographs in early projects.

To Gonçalo, the mentor of this project… how wonderful it is to dream and make this reality so much better.

To Artur, the practical man who believes in dreamers.

To Nicolas, the enigmatic madman.

To Fonze, even madder and exceptional.

To Denis, the man from a world we would all like to know.

To Daughan, and to my girls, where everything has always been framed by the palette of traditional Chinese writing, which accompanies and will continue to accompany me, so I do not forget, in my home, so far and so close to our art.

To the taxi drivers… Thank you for the music I just heard.

To the mountain walk… what I dreamed on that day of trust, where I understood the verticality and ecstasy of this natural heritage.

To the House of Red Lanterns… where dreams were made every day and where I also dreamed and painted in an improvised studio where the floor already belonged to my paintings.

To the restaurant and to my friend whose name I do not remember, but which is not important, where I ate, lived, and met him, and whom I hope to see again one day, in memory of so many moments we shared, by the embers that always awaited me in the late afternoon.

To the classes and the kids, to recycling, and to the strong emotions of memories from Africa.

To Sara, with her intense spirituality.

To Rui, my friend… with that extraordinary view towards infinity.

To Filipa, with her uncontrolled sensitivity, with whom I felt such a connection and….. dance.

To Marina, with all her charm and mastery as a great northern woman.

To Vasco, whose work was not built but found its cozy niche among the rocks.

To Michel… the person I understood best with his three faces pierced with color and with whom a lunch happened where chopsticks were his brushes, and all of us from the hard and lasting group where work and friendship occurred.

Tea House… to the path I walked every day, respecting the natural course of animals that was also created for humans by skilled hands, and that took me daily to an extraordinary place of experiences and sensations.

Museum… inverted covering that my carpenter friends executed, while always helping me when needed, and I will never forget the smile of this friendship.

Artist’s Residence… the uniforms where modernism and tradition of a people who cannot stop intersected.

The Medicinal Garden… full of centuries-old sensations and aromas. To the women who made it, who planted it, and who helped me so much, where men are just craftsmen.

Tim Madeira
Multidisciplinary Artist

8 Posts in My Garden

From wooden posts for constructing a new museum and recycled materials, my work emerged, linked to nature and the immense respect that the place and project demanded.

**Fragments** – These began a process that turned into a project which, to my great surprise, made me recall extraordinary moments on a distant island in Mozambique where I felt the world is small and fragile.

**Iron** – A strip of white limestone on an immense black rock, with the metallic remnants of some metalwork as the backdrop.

**Swarf** – Representing the pure observation of the remnants of daily work.

**Cans** – Products of a civilization in excessive consumption, and one of the strangest and filthiest places I have ever known, with gentle and smiling people who didn’t understand why a foreigner would buy trash and carry it himself amidst laughter and surprises and an incomprehensible dialogue.

**Pots** – From a pottery, with an extraordinary kiln whose glowing light dazzled with charm when the adobe wall blocking its fiery entrails was opened, like lost children yet to be born.

**Plastics** – Pigs, filthy and malodorous, human remains… no further comments, always the most visual.

**Tiles** – Representing the signature of a craftsman artist, at the top of a residential volume, a signature with no parallel.

**Number Eight** – Painted by the mastery of a people… Sissi and Daughan, the fruit of centuries of history, tradition, and memory, with a meaning associated with happiness, future, and good fortune.

At the deepest level of my honesty, what I feel most is the selfish nostalgia for the moments and people I will never forget.

Traveling is, beyond the experience of physical distance from the place of origin, accessing an emotional state that offers us a unique and enriching experience of our memory capital.

Discovering new realities with the encouragement of developing an artistic project is certainly a great benefit that I aimed to fully utilize in both artistic and personal aspects. The theme to be developed was exciting in its contemporaneity, and the type of art to be adopted in the realization of the project, although historically predated by novelty, was the most evident and appealing given the location and characteristics of the space to be addressed.

Everything unfolded at the speed of light in my head, in a healthy excitement that only triggered greater creativity. Quickly, the choice of materials and volume to be adopted was found, and the realization of the piece began and unfolded naturally until its installation at the final location.

Each mast/totem was created with an idiosyncrasy reflecting the images and experiences offered by the passage of days, and each one, built with different materials but highlighting a voluntary coherence, can be assigned a meaning. Perhaps this meaning cannot be named individually, but the unique identity of each one converges into a global whole that I intentionally chose to convey, in my own way, what the theme provoked in me and how my creativity was stimulated.

An integral part of the project experience was the interaction and exchange of experiences with the various participants, collaborators, and inhabitants. The perpetual value lies in the exchange of viewpoints, knowledge, and personal and cultural experiences.

Life in the village provided me with an invaluable legacy. I believe that the contact between participants gave each of us an expanded view of our personal work and enriched our interesting perception of different responses to the same stimuli.

On the other hand, the contact with all the participants who were present, either to support the action logistically or to actively participate in the realization of the project, revealed an inexhaustible wealth.

From new visions and interpretations of concepts I thought were definitive, to observing different ways of seeing life and the world, a tremendous gain in personal and professional terms was ensured.

Getting into a taxi and the driver choosing the music that marks our memory, or learning by reading the timeless gestures of the cook on how to prepare a typical delicacy, are new stones in a multicolored pavement.

A pavement that I build without time limit or desire.

Tim Madeira
Multidisciplinary Artist

Vasco Luz

Vasco Luz, born in 1980, is an artist/craftsman who graduated from the Fundação Ricardo Espírito Santo Silva and who gave an early start in the experience of other universes by applying his technique in artistic sculpture.
The smoothness of his cutting transports us to an organic depth directly connected to nature, where he reveals the capability to evidence his works at the same time it becomes part of its surroundings.

"One of these days, while walking through one of the valleys surrounding JiuXian, I came across a root. At first sight, I was drawn to the way it stood out against the grass. In a contemplative state, I observed it, and without delay, it took hold of my thoughts. The seed was sown for the development of my work and its subsequent mark on this space that has already provided me with such grand sensations. I immediately felt certain that something emerging from this place would influence me in gaining clarity. I was sure that my work would be closely related to the space, and that it would be on a level similar to my vision of any artistic intervention in such a magnificent setting. I felt completely defined and calmly accepted this fact."

Vasco Luz
Wood Designer

Root

Suddenly, and because I always knew it, any preconceived ideas about how to approach this intervention were set aside. It does not seem, and has never seemed, reasonable to try to project a work twelve thousand kilometers away from the top of a noisy and polluted city. As I had thought, the space took charge of guiding me toward what it itself would like to achieve, for its own benefit, with my help. I always have a more practical side than a theoretical one when it comes to executing and considering any piece. In this case, I believe both situations are equally important. The execution of the piece serves the purpose of its nature, and its definition requires this material construction so that it can exist and be understood.

The root becomes the sustainable base of life itself. It hides to provide the necessary security to those who depend on it. It remains invisible and conceals its varied forms. Incredible unrevealed moments live beneath our feet. The tree is the spectrum of its roots. It is the world turned inside out where a necessary darkness prevails. The root awaits light so that it can offer the most attentive eyes a perfect understanding of this already initiated state. We are part of a cycle in which we are included and upon which we depend. It exists before we can comprehend it.

The reproduction of the emotional and reflective effect regarding what lies beyond our reach is the idea of this work. We are neither beginning nor end. We are the realization of what sustains us. We are, in one way or another, limited by our roots, dependent on their structure for us to evolve. I am completely fascinated by how nature imposes its characteristics on us. We cannot determine its behavior or escape this condition. What we do know is that there are defined relationships, and their manifestations reveal and implement the most fantastic observations. The root is oriented by its goal, perfectly established and necessarily effective in its purposes.

As chosen materials for the development of the work, wood, iron, and earth or clay form its strong core, dependent on atmospheric conditions that will certainly influence it. The bulk of the work is wood, a material with which I most identify and have a special relationship. In a spiral, continuous, and intertwined effect, the piece comes to life with the chosen direction of its extremities. In attempting to recreate the discovered element, the work may be mistaken for any other being or object, a perception that will pass through the imagination of the observer. Iron is present as a hidden element and as reinforcement of the various joints that make up the work. It is also present in its natural environment. Earth, which infiltrates the exposed cavities, proves to be the most flexible and adapted element. It finds its own means for development. The piece is not defined by its construction terminus; it remains serene and perfectly oriented to continue growing.

After much thought about the form I want to give to this work, I come to the most obvious conclusion, that is, just like a root in its natural environment which does not have a defined line of progression and, due to all the elements it encounters and all the adversities it must overcome, has to mold itself to exist, so will my work be developed. Its final design is an extension of its will. Its curves will adapt to the moment of its creation.

Vasco Luz
Wood Designer