Newsletter 250
April 2024
It's summer already and OBRAS is surrounded by an ocean of flowers. Although we officially started only on 15 April, some residents arrived earlier.
Residents at OBRAS-Portugal in April are Martine de Kok (multimedia; Belgium), Marsja Mudde (singer, Musicologist; Holland), Kayla Kurin (writer; Canada), Seema Lyer (writer; UK, Germany), Ingrid Simons (visual arts; Holland), Tam Eastley (writer; Canada, Germany) and one artist still to be confirmed. In OBRAS-Holland, Vincent Kortmann (writer, Holland) will have a short residency. Although we look forward, we still have vivid memories of what all happened in 2023. An photo collage is on our Facebook site, while an overview for 2023 of the residents and their projects is on the 2023 page (with some recent highlights are in this newsletter). Sherry Wiggins has a long-term project on "heroines": she embodies mythological and historical heroines in performative photography with photographer Luis Branco. Most of the photo shoots were taken at OBRAS-Portugal or OBRAS-Holland. At this moment Sherry is shooting at OBRAS-Portugal. She embodies the Greek goddess Circe, known from Homer's The Odyssey and other texts, in which Circe uses drugged wine to turn men into pigs.
Over the centuries, Circe has been a source of inspiration for painters, composers, poets and writers. In all artworks she is a strong woman in a man's world. But she got assigned countless roles: seductress, heroine, witch, prostitute, expert of hallucinogenic herbs, devourer of men, sexually free woman, ... At OBRAS-Portugal, Sherry is now performing Circe turning lions and wolves into tame sheep. For this photo shoot she invited a number of our friends to act (Jacinta, São, Fatima, António, Pedro). Although Antonio Tavares (Portugal) lives nearby, in March he was working at OBRAS to find the space, tranquillity and inspiration that he does not find at home. He was highly productive.
Ella Zirina (Latvia, living in Holland) is jazz guitarist and composer. In February she came to OBRAS-Holland hoping to find a quiet space to compose music without distractions and responsibilities from the outside world. At her residence she felt that she could reconnect to her musical influences and, by taking walks in the nearby forest, ground herself into a calmer mindset that allowed her creativity to flow. She composed several pieces on guitar to be performed and recorded for her next album.
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