Newsletter 269
November 2024
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OBRAS got its first autumn rains and the landscape turned green again. We are harvesting olives and prepare for winter.
In October, residents were Janet Steen (writer; USA), Sherry Wiggins (performative photography; USA), Juliette Salin (textile artist; Switzerland), Aura Sevon (Finland), Wilma Geldof (writer; Holland), Dylan McNulty (writer; UK/Germany), Rachel Back (poet; Israel), Nina Elder (visual artist; USA) and Luis Branco (visual artist, Portugal). In November, Sara and Kevin Tolman took care of our house and worked on their art. At OBRAS-holland, Paul Melis (writer) and Emma Stoneman (visual artist), both from Australia, have a two-months residency. This newsletter tells about the residents and their projects in October and November, and about the Open Studio that we had on 22 September. Earlier projects are on the 2024 page. 
Rachel Back is a poet / writer from Galilee, Israel. She came to write, but also to escape the violence of war for a few weeks. Rachel was working on her biography, which has a focus on her deep, genetically based depression. She chose to write her story in a creative non-fiction format: she took the myth of Demeter as a lead. It talks about Demeter mourning on her daughter Persephone, who was kidnapped, raped and enslaved by Hades, God of the underworld. Rachel took not Demeter, but Persephone as a focal point: her fate to live in the underworld, serving her rapist.
Rachel managed to finish a first draft and send it to her publisher. Rachel gave us a Hebrew calligraphy: a wish for all who arrive and leave, to live in peace. Nine Elder (USA) came to explore the marble quarries and other stony structures as part of her ongoing project: Embodied Geology. By combining the exploration of geological phenomena, manmade structures and changing ecologies, with social dynamics, deep sensing, intuition and personal truths, Nina connects the personal to the global and allows herself to contemplate on unknown planetary futures. In the last days of her residency an idea was born to organise a month-long residency for some eight artists in 2026: Embodied Geologic Research Residency. More information will follow on this website and on Nina’s: www.ninaelder.com
Janet Steen (USA) was working on a chapter that will become part of an essay on abandoned sites. It will contain details on the history of Herdade da Marmeleira and surrounding landscape. Janets’ interest in abandoned places has a deeper layer and acts as a metaphor: she lost her brother in a sudden and tragic way.
Janet is writing in the genre of creative non-fiction. During her artist talk she gave examples, resulting in a lively and in-depth discussion. This year, Sherry Wiggins (USA) came twice to OBRAS-Portugal. She is working for four years now on her HEROINES project: she performs mythical and historical heroines. In important driver for Sherry is that she wants to be a role model for aging women to feel strong. Her performances are photographed by Luis Branco (Portugal), with who she has a years-long professional relationship. Their work has been exhibited in both the USA and Portugal.
At this moment Sherry focusses on ancient goddesses, including the Greek goddess Circe, known from Homer’s The Odyssey, with her tamed lions and the men she transformed into swine; Isis, the Egyptian goddess of motherhood, fertility and magic; and Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love and sexuality. Via Aphrodite Sherry got interested in Inanna and Ishtar, her predecessors / sister goddesses of love and sexuality (and more) in ancient Mesopotamia. These goddesses fascinate Sherry for their special powers and independence and agency. They are all sexy, badass goddesses. This year Sherry worked on Circe, turning lions and wolves into tame sheep. For the photo shoot she invited a number of our friends to participate (Jacinta, São, Fatima, António, Pedro) Another project was reperforming the painting of Venus in Front of the Mirror, from Peter Paul Rubens (1615), for which two other friends participated in the image. Sherry was also working on preforming the goddess Inanna and on the Sumerian priestess, poet and princess Enheduanna (c. 2300 B.C.), who has written long poems and hymns devoted to Inanna. Her texts are the first in human history of which the author is known. Juliette Sallin (Switzerland) is textile artist. She was dying and printing large silk tissues, with pigments extracted from plants, clay and metallic oxides, mostly collected from the direct surroundings.
Julliette´s art research revolves around the female body as a vehicle of desire: what we feel toward someone and the one we provoke in them. This vital and slightly disturbing overflow is highlighted by an intertwining of the feminine and plant world. Juliette made an impressive three-meters-high installation with silk panels. It provoked a feeling of immersion; it was sensual, spiritual and sacral. The work was a try out for a public exhibition where the visitors will be invited to apprehend the work with their body to take on its full meaning. 
Dylan McNulty (UK, living in Germany) was working on Femmelandia, a novel about a gender non-conforming student, Char, who is possessed by a spirit called The Snatcher.
When the possessed body experiences an extreme emotion, Char tries to wrestle back control by keeping the body in a state of superficial pleasure. The body and the spirit create an ultra-feminine version of “Char”, based on the expectations of those around them. This successfully gains The Snatcher the shallow comforts (popularity, casual sex) they crave. The novel is structured in three parts: the Snatcher’s perspective, Char regaining control, and Snatcher & Char understand the possession as a traumatic/survival instinct. The story then works towards a place of integration, in line with trauma theory. Dylan was also writing an impressive poem on the duality of experience for trans people who transitioned later in life: what they do to survive vs. what to affirm them. The poem talks not just on hormonal or social shifts, but merely about existing as a trans person. Fran Lui (Taiwan) studied arts and architecture in Taipé and came to London for a pop-up study in bio design. Fran´s focus is on the relationship between man and nature, and more specifically on how spaces can be co-created and co-habited by human and other beings.
At OBRAS Fran was experimenting with cork. She made a site-specific work with cork strips floating as chandeliers between some cork oaks. It refers to mycorrhiza: the fungal network that connects roots of different trees and that is essential for tree health, especially in cork oak plantations. But it also refers to the notion that we are all interconnected. Fran applied to participate with this work in this town was a forest, an art exhibition in London. Fran also worked with ceramics. She made a dancing couple, partly covered with cork. It was fired in the workshop of Inocencia (Evoramonte) and was named Cortiça (Portuguese for cork). In November, Kevin and Sara Tolman (USA) were our house carers. In the same time, they worked on their art. Kevin made a series of collages, in which he glued snippets of newspapers, product flyers and packaging paper on cardboard and covered it with a transparent layer of paint, generally in earth colors. All works got Portuguese titles often referring to the light of the season.
Sara made lino cuts of animals, flowers or fruits and printed them in blue on rice paper. She responded on the Ajulejos: blue white tiles that are decorating walls of churches and aristocratic houses. |
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