It was to "leave a mark in the community" that the Lameiras Residents' Association (AML) developed the communitarian project "Marc@s - Art & Culture Intervention - For Community Cohesion", whose closing session took place last August 31, in Seide S. Paio, with the presentation of 10 art works developed in the county of Famalicão, one for each Social Inter-Parishes (CSIF).
The "Marc@s - Art & Culture Intervention - For Community Cohesion", was the winning project, of the 2019 edition of "Programar em Rede", an initiative promoted by the City Council of Famalicão, through the Municipal Council for Culture. The project was promoted in partnership with Academia Contemporânea do Espetáculo de Famalicão - ACE, the company Arga Tintas and A Casa ao Lado, and aimed to work on community cohesion, through art and culture, involving all the CSIF of the county in a dynamic of "positive provocation" of the community, mirroring to the outside values, causes or projects that each CSIF has been working on.
"Everything that has been built is thinking about the future (...) the most important is the message that the project leaves", highlights Augusto Lima, Councillor for Integrated Territorial Development, portfolio in which the Inter-faith Social Commissions are inserted. "We are going to make of this project, a starting point (…) we now have resources so that, in the future, we can highlight what is our community and the involvement of our communities, of our people, in common projects" he underlined.
The intention was "to put cultural agents working together with the county's community in a creative process that would originate a brand, an identity of each CSIF", as Carla Silva, vice-president of the Lameiras Residents’ Association (AML), said, with a view to developing artistic actions based on the identity characteristics identified by the social partners of each CSIF territory.
It should be noted that the project, initially planned to be implemented in 2020, suffered a postponement in its execution, due to the pandemic, and ended up being implemented only in 2021, in a more conservative format. "We intended the broad involvement of the community", highlighted the Vice-President of AML, however, "the execution model had to be totally adapted".
In order to circumvent the impossibility of the physical involvement of the community in the project, AML, through CSIF, established partnerships with schools, in order to continue the work that began in early 2020, before the interruption due to the pandemic situation, with the consultation of communities, in order to identify the identity characteristics of each CSIF territory.
"Through the involvement of children and young people from each CSIF", said Vânia Barbosa, the AML technician responsible for the project's implementation, "drawings and stories were created that served as a basis for the work of A Casa ao Lado", in the case of the wall paintings developed, and "through the children's voices, present in the videos, we could share the main assets of the territory", referring to the short films developed through ACE, in a partnership with videographer Nuno Rocha.
It should be noted that the artistic actions developed within the scope of Marc@s included five audiovisual works covering the CSIF of Joane, Mogege, Pousada de Saramagos and Vermoim, Vale do Pelhe, Vale do Este, Lousado, Esmeriz and Cabeçudos and Fradelos, Ribeirão and Vilarinho das Cambas, as well as five mural paintings made in Seide S. Paio, Ruivães, Castiães and Vilarinho das Cambas. Paio, Ruivães, Castelões, Brufe and Gondifelos, parishes that are currently under the presidency of their respective CSIF. The distribution of the artistic interventions took into account the artistic projects already existing in the parishes.