In the district of Santarém, the 2019 Coruche Biennial – Percursos com Arte returns, taking place from 28 September to 13 October, and wants “to provide some renovation and dynamism to the area”.

Commissioned by the Municipal Museum of Coruche, the event, one that is been taking place since 2003, has now announced the participating artists and reemphasized the main objective “an aesthetic education centred on an audience unused to visual arts, particularly the contemporary”: A project that, since its inception, wants to be a harbour for brand-new talents, and a propelling force of decentralization.

This year, an open call challenged visual, national and international artists to participate in a program of artist residencies that references the historical, social, cultural, economic and geographical territory. The jury comprised by André Banha, Jorge Reis and Luís Marques selected ten candidates who stood out due to their difference and relevance to the development of work in a residency context. As they say, there are ten projects that “promote a diversity of ideas, multidisciplinarity and high artistic quality in the context of contemporary national and international artistic production”.

The first stage of residence, running from 20 May to 7 June, invites Catarina Real, Eunice Artur, Evgenia Emets, Joana Patrão and Marco Moreira; the second, from 1 July to 19 July, gives room to André Silva, Drika Prates, Márcio Carvalho, Maria Manuela Lopes + Paulo Bernardino Bastos and Tiago Margaça.

The resulting artistic works will be shown during the Biennial, where this exchange of experiences and involvement with the local community must be enhanced. This year, the appropriation of Bairro Novo will take advantage of the vacant buildings and the uncharacterized public spaces to “encourage people to collaborate and interact with the artistic movement that will take place there”.

Between May and October, Bairro will welcome and shown different forms of artistic expression, residences, exhibitions and many other events with an artistic, educational and also playful trait.