ALVEX, aumentando la realidad rural

ALVEX.VEXTRE.ORG

Opening on February 19th, 2022
Curator: Natalia Piñuel Martín
Co-curator: José Alberto Ferreira
Centro de Arte e Cultura, Floor 0 / Rostrum Room

OPENING HOURS
OCTOBER – APRIL
Tuesday to Sunday, from 10am to 1pm / 2pm to 6pm

MAY – SEPTEMBER
Tuesday to Sunday, from 10am to 1pm / 2pm to 7pm

Free admission

Along with the VEXTRE project, the expanded art project entitled ALVEX represents a force for cross-border continuity, designed as a map of emotions in three dimensions, involving an approach to the rediscovery of the territory we inhabit while subverting traditional forms of discourse on the territory of Extremadura. 

Both projects involve the compilation of socio-economic data translated into the language of contemporary art and new technologies, connecting with a diverse audience who interact with the pieces and build its own narratives about its cultural identity. For its presentation in the city of Évora, ALVEX includes elements of physical sculpture and 3D virtual reality which share the same time and space. 

Reflecting current interests and concerns in her work, artist Maite Cajaraville, a pioneer in the field of digital art, opens up new horizons with VEXTRE and ALVEX, producing a sculpture of the future and creating a new territory straddling the border, taking in Estremadura and the Alentejo.

Natalia Piñuel Martín

OPENING SESSION
February 19 | 4pm
Conversation with:
Maite Cajaraville, artist
Catalina Pulido Corrales, Diretor of MEIAC
Jorge Gaspar, Geographer
José Alberto Ferreira, Artistic Director of Centro de Arte e Cultura – Eugénio de Almeida Foundation

Oracles
José Alberto Ferreira
In ancient times, with grand, solemn gestures, augurs would trace a square in the air, delimiting a space within which omens might be divined and wonders revealed. When a flight of birds was spied crossing this window of sky, priests were able to interpret signs that offered encouragement for the performance of heroic deeds or boded well for successful conquests in enigmatic oracles.
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Alentejo and Extremadura. Art and Territory(ies)
Francisco T. Cerezo Vacas, MEIAC
The regions of Extremadura in Spain and the Alentejo in Portugal coexist in a unique geographical, social and cultural context. A territory characterized by vernacular relations of neighborhood between the inhabitants of both sides who gravitate around the border that divides Spain and Portugal. This is soft border region, locally known as the raia, or borderlands, a concept that portrays the local environment both in physical and identity terms, while at the same time a measure of ambiguity is present. 
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VEXTRE
Natalia Piñuel Martín
In the popular imagination, a narrative has been constructed around the cultural nature of Extremadura that is rooted in stereotypes of socio-economic underdevelopment. Historically, the region has been defined by its status as a peripheral and border territory, a space on the margins with a low density of population and an example of what some scholars refer to as “internal colonialism”, reflected in the metrópoli-colonia dichotomy, between the centre and periphery or urban and rural, and visible here within the same territory.
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