See you in Portugal?

You might have seen the exciting news we shared a few weeks ago; WLC is part of a cooperative project funded by the EU, called WALC, short for Walking Arts & Local Communities. Read the announcement here.

The project runs for four full years, from the start of this year, to the end of 2027, and involves 7 partners in five countries. The partners, ourselves, UOWM, De School van Gaasbeek, GigaCircus, Nau Côclea, UMINHO, and Action Synergy, have been working together extensively over the years, and this project will allow us to facilitate closer ties, facilitate more inclusive events, and bring on board a broader range of artists, and involve them more deeply, yourself included.

You can rewatch our virtual kickoff, and this coming weekend most of us will physically be in the same room, in the historical center of Guimarães, in northern Portugal, where UMINHO, the University of Minho, has a campus, and where Lab2PT will organize the conference The Walking Body 5.

I'm a sucker for somewhat less mainstream history, and the northwest of Portugal fits the bill.
Minho was a former province in Portugal, established in 1936 and dissolved in 1976. The area has substantial Celtic influences and shares many cultural traits with neighbouring Galicia in Northwestern Spain. The region was part of the Roman Province and early Germanic medieval Kingdom of Gallaecia.
The old town of Guimarães is a World Heritage Site, but the nearby city of Braga was the capital of Minho. In Braga, you can find a painted statue of Augustus Caesar, the first emperor of the Roman Empire. It's a copy of a statue that was found in the house of the third, and last, wife of Augustus. In Rome.
However, Braga was once Bracara Augusta, and founded by Augustus after his army conquered the local Celtic settlements.
The statue is painted, in an attempt to approximate what Roman statues actually looked like, and is one of the very few Romanesque statues displayed as such, around the world.

But, we're meeting in Guimarães, on the eve of The Walking Body 5 (TWB), dedicated to "more than human walking".

TWB is a project centered on the act of "Walking as an artistic practice", exploring the imagination and creativity of walking in the city of Guimarães. 

TWB5 features 9 artists, with the collaboration and involvement of, amongst others, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the University of Murcia. Featured artists will be Verónica Perales (ES), Soazic Guezennec (FR), Maria Ristani (GR), Geert Vermeire (BE), David Merleau (CAN), Fred Adam (FR), Manuel Miranda Fernandes (PT), Miguel B Duarte (PT) and Natacha Antão (PT).

For most of the activities, you'll have to make your way to Guimarães, and I hope to see you there. But, we are also facilitating a café from the premises, which will be broadcast live. The cafe, titled More than Human Walking, will include the artists mentioned above.
If you can't make it to Portugal physically, you can still join us virtually.

Keep walking.

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