CONFLUÈNCIES, artistic interventions in El Comtat (Alicante)

CONFLUÈNCIES. Intervenciones artísticas en el medio rural is coming to the end of its process of residencies and artistic creation. After weaving interconnections, actions, pieces and experiences between artists, inhabitants and visitors in the villages involved in previous stages of the project (Alto Mijares, Alto Palancia, Els Ports and the central regions of Valencia), this programme extended to regions of Alicante with residencies and site-specific installations in four villages of El Comtat. These are Benillup, a village in the centre of the Valle de Travadell; Benimassot, known as the “lookout point of La Serella” with its magnificent views over the Vall de la Seta; Tollos, the smallest village in Alicante, which also looks out onto the open valley over the river of the same name; and Famorca, a small location on the northern slope of La Serrella.
After the first actions in the region in winter this year, Confluències has been extended for some months, generating a framework for art and mediation, with the implication of host villages and the people who live in them. Through dialogue and contact with resident artists, the following mediation and art projects are being carried out in the four villages of El Comtat:

• Rubén García in Benillup invites us to pay attention to the sounds in the landscape of the area at his installation at the Travadell lookout point, where visitors can listen without using their hearing, through bone induction.

• Lola Zoido in Benimassot has made a series of sculptures using AI appealing to the liking for throwing a coin into water to ask for wishes. Her intention is to install them in the – currently dry – canal that runs through the village.

• Pilar Beltrán in Tollos tries to recover the lost sound of flocks that used to graze the land in an installation of sculptures with differently sized and sounding bells hanging from them.

• La Cuarta Piel in Famorca climbed up to the Nevera de la Font snowfield and has recuperated popular stories of ice being transported from the site to the coastal cities. This is the starting point of their intervention, in which female residents of the area have designed a “Famorca icecream” to be tasted on 8 July.

CONFLUÈNCIES would not have been possible without the inestimable help – before, during and after the artists’ residencies – of local agents and councils, as well as the residents who facilitated accommodation, meetings, conversations and management for these art interventions in their villages.

The 24 villages in Ruta 99 where the CONFLUÈNCIES programme of art interventions has taken place in 2021, 2022 and 2023 are: Espadilla, Fuentes de Ayódar, Torralba del Pinar, Torrechiva, Vallat, Villamalur, Higueras, Pavías, Matet, Sacañet, Fuente la Reina, Castell de Cabres, Herbés, Palanques, Vallibona and Villores in the Castellón province; Sempere, Carrícola and Puebla de San Miguel in the Valencia province; and Benillup, Benimassot, Famorca and Tollos, in Alicante.