INVASOR ABSTRACTO #8

cicle A PASSAGEM (The Passage)

A PASSAGEM is a long-term residency programme that invites national artistic structures to work in Fundão, with the aim of sharing their identity, their processes, existing works and new creations that emerge from their passage through this territory.

INVASOR ABSTRACTO (Abstract Invader)
“Invasor Abstracto” is a project dedicated to the circulation of different constellations of members of OSSO colectivo, here featuring contributions by Ricardo Jacinto, Rita Thomaz and Ricardo Vieira. In its various iterations, the creative territories of each artist intersect along an imagined journey between their own centre of activity (the village of São Gregório, Caldas da Rainha) and the spaces and communities that host them.

Invasor Abstracto is the nomadic expression of a collective whose artistic work has operated around the notion of territory and its aesthetic and political implications, whether in the construction of temporary communities fostered by OSSO or in those into which it is integrated. Now in its eighth iteration, Invasor Abstracto has already travelled through Convento de São Francisco, Coimbra (2019), Oficinas do Convento, Montemor-o-Novo (2020), gnration, Braga (2021), TBA, Lisbon (2021), CCB Garagem, Lisbon (2022), Appleton Box, Lisbon (2022) and Atelier-Museu Júlio Pomar, Lisbon (2024), arriving now in Fundão.

The natural and human landscape of Cova da Beira, its local communities and their cultural traces have been the focus of this eighth “journey” by OSSO colectivo, who now propose an exhibition, a concert, a children’s workshop and a conversation with art students at A MOAGEM – Cidade do Engenho e das Artes. Over the past year, OSSO colectivo has undertaken residency periods in Fundão, allowing them to become acquainted with and document some of the specificities of this territory. From early on, these features emerged as potential points of intersection with the artistic research carried out by the collective in the place where it is permanently based: the village of São Gregório, in Caldas da Rainha.

From the identification of natural colours associated with local flora, to the territorial and “magical” character of the rituals surrounding the Bombos de Lavacolhos, from the winds and whirlwinds common to this region, to the wool industry and its histories of nomadism and transhumance, the exhibition now presented in A MOAGEM’s gallery offers visitors an “abstract territory” composed of sounds, forms, lines and colours that once belonged to these two relatively distant places and that now give body to yet another “appearance” of the INVASOR ABSTRACTO.

This hybrid, composite character of the Invader extends to the concert, the workshop and the conversation: the poetic cross-breeding and intersection between territories is understood not only as an aesthetic gesture, but above all as a political one, generating proposals for shared freedom within a community.

Acknowledgements

Within the scope of this project, a special thanks is extended to Miguel Rainha, who invited OSSO colectivo to take part in the cycle A PASSAGEM and helped shape the interaction with points of interest and local people. Thanks are also due to shepherd José Martins Sabugueiro, who generously shared some of his memories as a transhumant; to Burel Factory, to its director and the team who so warmly welcomed the collective during sound recordings and learning around industrial weaving; to the Bombos de Lavacolhos group (Abílio Guerra, Américo Simão, Carlos Guerra, Gabriel Alves, Hugo Agulha, Luís Filipe Simão, Marc Matos, Pedro Garcia and Philippe Matos), who once again brought their art into A MOAGEM for an original sound recording; to the Eugénio de Andrade Municipal Library (Fundão) for their support in bibliographical research; and to Bina Paulo for accompanying the visit to the Panasqueira Mines.

The collective also thanks Nuno Morão, who was present during the first residency, and, finally, the invaluable support of the entire MOAGEM team throughout the year.

OSSO colectivo Fundão, 8 November 2024

Exhibition

INVASOR ABSTRACTO #8
“são cordas de vento” (“they are strings of wind”)

1. BORBORINHOS
: Multichannel sound using contact loudspeakers distributed across several resonant structures

In a dark, arena-like space, sound circulates and accelerates in a spiral through the resonant structures that give it form. We hear the murmur of transhumance in the slow, ceremonial walk of those who follow the flock; the wind whispering through the rocky outcrops; and the dance and motion of industrial looms.

“Borborinho” is a homophone of “burburinho” (murmur, bustle) and is the local name given to the small whirlwinds of wind that occur in this part of the country.

2. POMAR (Orchard)
: Segments of suspended felted wool tubing, natural pigments, lead ballast and wire

Felted wool dyed with pigments extracted from plants gathered in the orchards around OSSO between Autumn 2023 and Autumn 2024, São Gregório (Caldas da Rainha).

This “device-piece” is the result of an archive of colours and plant fibres from the flora of São Gregório, incorporating into its creative process this raw material and the time and processes associated with its collection, archiving and subsequent transformation. These object-drawings are now drawings of time.

The changing colours of the São Gregório landscape throughout the year are revealed in chromatic devices presented in dialogue with the architecture of different spaces and the flora of diverse landscapes (OSSO, São Gregório, June 2023; Atelier-Museu Júlio Pomar, January 2024; MOAGEM, Fundão, November 2024). The archiving and transformation of plant fibres and dye plants are, simultaneously, raw material and drawing.

3. APARIÇÃO (Apparition)
: Chair, headphones and binaural sound recording documenting a performance by the Bombos de Lavacolhos

The Bombos de Lavacolhos group “occupies” the exhibition space, filling it with the deep vibration of drums, supported by voices and a flute. The binaural recording envelops the listener, transporting them into an acoustic space where the group of players acquires a ghostly presence that challenges our experience of what is “real”.