Places categories: Territory

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.

CONFLUÈNCIES, artistic interventions in the rural environment, is a project of artistic interventions in the twenty-four smallest villages of the Valencian Community, within the context ofIVAM al territori.

Focusing on the dynamics of listening and respect for the environment, CONFLUÈNCIES is a process-based programme revolving around three elements: dialogue with the land, the creation of specific artistic works, and various mediation actions. In order to sequence the actions and interventions, the project has regrouped the populations in five phases according to cultural and geographical criteria, but at the same time considering those factors that allow for the weaving of associations and subplots. Phase I: Alto Mijares (Espadilla, Fuentes de Ayódar, Torralba del Pinar, Torrechiva, Vallat and Villamalur); phase II: Mancomunidad del Alto Palancia (Fuente la Reina, Higueras, Matet, Pavías, Sacañet and Villanueva de Viver); phase III: Province of Valencia (La Puebla de San Miguel, Carrícola and Sempere); phase IV: Els Ports (Castell de Cabres, Herbers, Palanques, Vallibona and Villores); and phase V: El Comtat (Benillup, Binimassot, Famorca and Tollos) *.

For the artistic interventions in each of these municipalities, a total of twelve artists have been invited to form a diverse team. They are individuals and collectives from different generations, practices and backgrounds, whose common interests include themes such as the periphery, habitation, processes and memory. The team is made up of Bleda y Rosa, Carlos Izquierdo, Fent Estudi, La cuarta piel, Laura Palau, Lola Zoido, LUCE, Makea tu vida, Pep Vidal, Pilar Beltrán, Rubén García and Sandra Mar. With the aim of favouring a more permeable and expanded sojourn, each artist has the opportunity to reside and intervene in two towns, allowing prolonged reflections and shared experiences.

Once the pieces have been installed, CONFLUÈNCIES develops mediation activities with the intention of maintaining the links generated in each town and allowing the processes that have arisen during the periods of residence and artistic creation to be monitored. To this end, two types of actions have been designed to question the inside and outside, the rural and the urban, the central and the peripheral. Firstly, through a mediation project in the classrooms of the rural grouped schools (CRA), together with the IVAM’s education department – in line with processes already initiated in previous years. Secondly, through visits to the towns that host the interventions and which, departing from the museum, allow citizens to get away from the city and share time and conversation with the artists and the people involved in the localities.

CONFLUÈNCIES would not be possible without the invaluable help – before, during and after the artist’s sojourns – of the town’s councils and local agents, as well as the neighbours who provide accommodation, encounters, conversations and negotiations in order to carry out the artistic activations in their municipalities.
* The twenty-four localities where the Confluències programme is being developed are the villages of the so-called Route 99, and their interventions are the result of the Generalitat Valenciana’s invitation to the IVAM to take part in this initiative. In addition to the villages of the Alto Mijares phase, the other municipalities that make up the route and in which Confluències proposes its intervention programme are, in the province of Castellón: Fuente la Reina, Villanueva de Viver, Matet, Sacañet, Higueras and Pavías (Mancomunidad Alto Palancia) Vallibona, Herbés, Palanques, Villores and Castell de Cabres (Els Ports); in the province of Valencia; and La Puebla de San Miguel; and Benillup, Benimassot, Famorca and Tollos (El Comtat), in the province of Alicante.

CONFLUÈNCIES. Artistic interventions in the towns of Route 99

After the first visit to Carrícola, and verifying the overwhelming presence of art there, I decided what I could do and contribute to the municipality. After visiting and getting to know the artistic trails created by the Biodivers project, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to add another element to those itineraries through sound.

My sound walks during the days that I spent in the town resulted in LDE Carrícola, a series of Lugares de Escucha (LDE), or Listening Places, distributed along three Biodivers trails, taking in different surroundings and centering on all their acoustic qualities.

After exploring those ten LDEs, the idea emerged to give the project a second sound intervention: Amagats, a sound piece based on the capture of hidden sounds that are inaudible to the human ear. The intention is to get closer to the acoustic reality of what surrounds us but which we are not able to hear.

You can download here the complete file of my intervention in Carrícola with the map of the proposed LDE. And in this link you can listen to Amagats*

*This sound piece contains low frequencies and subtle sound materials that are inaudible through computer or smartphone speakers. It is recommended to use headphones or other types of speakers.

Rubén García Villaplana (Bicorp, 1974) is a biologist, audio artist and independent curator based in Valencia. He has organised concerts, workshops and installations both in Spain and abroad. In the scientific sphere, he has worked in the field of community ecology and bioacoustics, in particular, in the ultrasonic communication of Chiropterans. He has had many works edited into different formats in Europe, USA, South America and Australia.

CONFLUÈNCIES. Artistic interventions in the towns of Route 99

Within the region of Rincón de Ademuz, the municipality of La Puebla de San Miguel is a high mountain town, the epicentre of the natural park with which it shares its name. The diversity of landscapes offered by its mountainous terrain and the shape of its splendid forests make this a destination for many visitors, who come here at weekends and during their holidays to explore its trails and paths. The town has a large square where the Council and the parish church of San Miguel Arcángel are located, which for years, the inhabitants have been calling for its urgent repair.

During our stay in La Puebla de San Miguel our work was based on observation and active listening, walking around the town and its surroundings, getting to know the spaces and places that emerged from the conversations that we had with some of the inhabitants of the town and from other nearby municipalities. Time and time again, these walks and accounts led us to pick up the thread of the previous intervention, which was carried out in the municipality of Sacañet. There, an enormous bench which was conceived as a sign and a resting place, poses the question of how and for whom do we revalue the resources of the actual surroundings, making evident the indisputable conflict between the romantic image and the reality of daily life for those who live in the town.

The intervention comes to life as a wooden bench located in the town square within the shadow of the church, with an inscription carved on it that declares «The _______ of the town». An incomplete message that is open to interpretation. A space that speaks of spaces which demand to be reinstated, perhaps with new uses, for daily enjoyment, for gatherings and celebrations. A bench in the square on which to come together.

You can download here more information about our intervention in La Puebla de San Miguel.

Makea tu Vida (València) is a collective that works in the space that exists between the worlds of design and ecology. Its practices are aimed at promoting open design, knowledge exchange and collective creativity, applied to re-use in different contexts and situations.

CONFLUÈNCIES. Artistic interventions in the towns of Route 99

The presence of the Bellús reservoir in the municipality of Sempere is very important. Looking out from its scenic viewpoint, the image of all the water it holds is impressive. But what lies beneath the dam? I asked myself that same question, and the people of the area explained to me that, not that long ago, these lands were swallowed up by the water. The construction of the dam in 1995 in order to control the flow of the Albaida River, flooded part of the memory of the villages located around its perimeter.

Pondering on these real (past) and potential (future) floods while walking around the edge of the town, in an abandoned meadow, I found a group of stones and some “strange things” scattered and half submerged, this time, by the vegetation.

My suggestion in Sempere consisted of measuring, classifying and reorganising all the elements in this abandoned meadow into geometric shapes. An intervention that evokes the submerged history under the water and which reflects on the limits of control.

You can download here the complete file of my intervention in Sempere.

Pep Vidal (Rubí, Barcelona, 1980) is a Mathematics graduate and has a Doctorate in Physical Sciences. He combines his artistic practice with teaching at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. His artistic interest is in the infinitesimal changes that are always produced, everywhere, linking his research to vital experiences.

CONFLUÈNCIES. Artistic interventions in rural areas is a process that carries out specific actions in each of the participating municipalities*. Initiated in two of the inland regions of Castellón -Alto Mijares and Alto Palancia-, the programme has continued to expand throughout the territory to reach three small towns in the province of Valencia, travelling from north to south: La Puebla de San Miguel, in the foothills of the Javalambre mountain range; Sempere, on the shores of the Bellús reservoir; and Carrícola, in the shadow of the Benicadell.

Confluències, ithin the context of IVAM al territori, aims to generate a framework of artistic creation and mediation in which the gestures, voices and gazes of the people who live in these places are involved. It aims to establish, through dialogue and coexistence with the artists, a two-way flow of experiences and knowledge. On this occasion, sound artist Rubén García and physics PhD Pep Vidal have joined the project. Likewise, Makea Tu Vida, a collective that has already intervened in the municipality of Sacañet (Alto Palancia), is once again developing its proposals in the highest municipality in the province of Valencia.

Following these processes of exchange and listening between artists, inhabitants and landscape, specific interventions have been prepared for each locality:

• In La Puebla de San Miguel (Rincón de Ademuz), Makea Tu Vida ggenerates a space of coexistence for its neighbours in the surroundings of the church square.
• In Sempere (La Vall d’Albaida), Pep Vidal has created an intervention that evokes a history inundated by water, reflecting in this way on the limits of control.
• In Carrícola (La Vall d’Albaida), Rubén García invites us to investigate the sound fields of selected places within the municipality and to connect with our capacities as listeners, always through attentive listening.

*The twenty-four localities where the Confluències programme is being developed are the villages of the so-called Route 99, and their interventions are the result of the Generalitat Valenciana’s invitation to the IVAM to take part in this initiative. In addition to the villages of the Alto Mijares phase, other municipalities that make up the route and in which Confluències proposes its intervention programme are: Fuente la Reina, Villanueva de Viver, Matet, Sacañet, Higueras and Pavías (Mancomunidad Alto Palancia) Vallibona, Herbés, Palanques, Villores and Castell de Cabres (Els Ports); in the province of Castellón: Sempere, Carrícola and La Puebla de San Miguel in the province of Valencia; and Benillup, Benimassot, Famorca and Tollos (El Comptat), in the province of Alicante.