After the pandemic, city and country are closer together, where life in the city calls for a trip or a stay in the country. In this context, the artistic residencies RAMA arise.

Opened in September 2020, the residency programme is one-year-old with the work of many in-resident and guest artists, researchers and curators.

RAMA, in the villages of Maceira and Alfeiria in the municipality of Torres Vedras, was born out of painter Paulo Brighenti’s wish to have his studio outside the city of Lisbon, whilst maintaining some proximity to the capital. The idea of integrating artistic residencies next to his studio came naturally, when he found an old unused cellar that today lodges the studio-house.

At the foundation of RAMA was the notion of a collaborative ecosystem. “This project, in a rural environment of a small community, needed a broader reason to exist, one that would not only defend the interests of RAMA and the artists, but of everyone, benefiting the community, heritage and territory. This is our mission. Paulo Brighenti says that the impact “of our activities, with the presence of the artists, guests, participants and visitors” would have to benefit everyone.

The Torres Vedras City Council, the Parishes of Carvoeira and Carmões, and the Parishes of Dois Portos and Runa warmly welcomed the project, quickly ceding the former Alfeiria school, built in 1981 in an initiative by the village’s mothers. It was deactivated at the point when it started to welcome the residents. The memory of this building, devoted to training and knowledge sharing, is preserved and can thus continue to be used.

The residence can host 3 to 4 residents, and is meant for national and international artists, researchers and curators who want to develop their work through the combination with other practices, the sharing of experiences and knowledge, and a relationship with the local community, the territory, the culture, the crafts and traditional knowledge, as well as the region’s history and landscape.

The community also welcomed the project with open arms, confirming its sustainability in several aspects. There is an informal exchange in the daily coexistence between the participants and a formal exchange through RAMA’s activities or the projects developed by the artists, joining community, territory and heritage. The gains and learning are reciprocal in the experiences during the residency, according to the artists who were able to participate in the programme.

There is a specialised and immersive working environment, which establishes connections between the different participants through a close monitoring of the work under development. Besides the presence of the coordinator Paulo Brighenti and the curator João Silvério, other artists, researchers and curators are invited in each residency. Other meetings, visits, interviews, lectures and initiatives that complement and enhance the programme are also promoted at the same time. These events are documented and promoted by RAMA, where Ana Margarida Sousa, resident in Maceira, is responsible for the projects, communication and contact with the local community.

RAMA is a place of work, focus and concentration, materialised in a pre-planned isolation, in which exists a different sense of time. The programme wants to promote not only a deepening of the residents’ work, but also its promotion and sharing to the outside. There is no conceptual guideline in each residency. The approach and the modus operandi of each one are free. The result allows for different discourses and know-hows, the fruit of an environment of open artistic creation.

There have already been several projects that have mixed visual arts and poetry, routes have been created in the territory through performative acts, the creation of a unique pigment for RAMA has been proposed, among many other experiences that have brought together artists, curators, researchers and the local community. All this conceives, enhances and reveals a territory unknown to many.

During the pandemic, due to sanitary limitations, some conversations with invited artists took place online, allowing the participation and involvement of people not only from Portugal, but also from other countries, such as England, Belgium or Germany. The residencies have also welcomed artists from the most different places, such as Italy, Netherlands, United Kingdom, United States, Brazil, Iceland and Portugal.

For a year, there has been a dynamic network, which builds, densifies and expands, made up of people, entities and organisations. It was the basis for the construction of a visual map – Social Economy Canvas – based on the idea of a more sustainable economy, at the invitation of the European Community.

“It was highly satisfying for us to notice, through the final map, that months after implementing RAMA on the ‘ground’, we managed to align our practices and achieve our goals of sustainability and balance between systems. It is a current need, there would be no sense in doing RAMA differently”, says Paulo Brighenti.

RAMA has already invited Cristina Ataíde, Ana Vidigal, Cecília Costa, Susana Mendes Silva, Ana Pérez-Quiroga, Carla Rebelo, Luís Bragança Gil, Marta Wengorovius, Davide Canali, Luís Silveirinha, Pedro Vaz, Ana Anacleto, Pedro Gomes, Alexandre Baptista e Vasco Barata. Bem como os artistas em residência Silvia Pallini, Diogo Magro Viegas, Helena Valsecchi (also responsible for web design, social media and RAMA projects), Elsie Phipps, Patrícia Timóteo, Stefanía Ólafsdóttir, Duarte Filipe, David Correia Gonçalves, Sean Negus, Ana Caetano, Claudia Lima, Jéssica Gaspar, Sofia Castanheira, Franka Struys, António Bokel, Gwendolyn van der Verden, Elisabeth Langford and the duo Ângela Dias and Maria João Gromicho.

The residencies last from 1 to 4 months and are divided into two different programmes. One includes studio and accommodation or just studio work; the artists’ work is monitored by a tutor in their private studios.

After a year of intense activity, there will be a commemorative exhibition in Torres Vedras curated by João Silvério and works developed by the participants. Many of them are in development and have a procedural character (notes, reflections, etc.) since the objective of the residencies is not to make an exhibition, but to develop a research that embodies the works in progress.

After this year, there are surprises and stimulating experiences expected for the years to come, for RAMA is like a living organism, which will feed and build fluidly, as it weaves its web in the local territory and the global world, residency after residency, programme after programme, visit after visit, with total freedom.

Revealing part of what will happen, besides the open calls, the several residencies and the dynamics between resident artists and guests, the aim is not only to map the territory near RAMA, giving names to places currently unknown by those who don’t inhabit the region, but also to recover a lost recipe of a typical sweet with the local community.

There was also a recent open call, developed with the support of the Torres Vedras City Hall, only for artists from the municipality, with the attribution of three creative scholarships that include accommodation, studio, tutoring, curatorship, project exhibition and an online catalogue.

We were warmly welcomed by the whole team and by the resident artists, and further meetings are promised whenever we are in the region. This is the philosophy of this place, which is 40 minutes from Lisbon, a meeting point, for sharing and interaction between residents, guests and visitors. Enough reasons to apply for residencies or to visit the villages of Maceira and Alfeiria, in the council of Torres Vedras.

All the information about RAMA, the programme and applications are available on the RAMA website.