Festival and
Laboratory

Festival and
Laboratory

summary of the last edition -
9th November to 1st December 2018, Coimbra

Linha de Fuga was the first edition of a two-fold event which is intended to be biennial with the next edition taking place in June 2020.  It was an artistic creation laboratory and an international festival designed for Coimbra, considering the size of the city, the diversity of agents and equipment and the need for decentralized initiatives related to contemporary performative arts. It also provided a space for reflection, experimentation and professional training (the laboratory), and an eclectic and cosmopolitan programme (the festival).

The laboratory advanced vital and international professional training, bringing together
18 artist-creators and 2 artists/documenters from different countries  and fields of expertise in an intersection of thought about the relation between art and society, causing them to think about territory in a global, but also local manner;  it challenged academia (PhDs in post-colonialism and global citizenship), leading them to see the participants’ artistic processes as a way of producing knowledge; it opened the possibility of experimenting with artistic practices by providing work spaces and public presentation of artistic projects in progress.

The
program of the festival was imagined as a showcase of the different modes of artistic current contemporary expression and, for the first time ever in Portugal, presented the works of invited foreign artists next to works by Portuguese artists and of the processes of the artists that participated in the laboratory. Spread out across various city spaces (theatres, galleries, streets and unconventional venues) the agenda was drawn up according to the profile of the partners that agreed to take part, thus allowing the promotion of synergies with several local institutions; it promoted democratization of the arts with a policy of shows at accessible prices, in parallel with free events; it advertised the dynamics of artistic activity in the city, by inserting other local artistic programmes in its own promotion.

With an average occupancy of 73% capacity of spectators in the shows, presentations of processes and parallel activities and a daily average of 21 visitors to the installation (which was open until the 28th of December), the festival was attended by 1,997 people in its first edition.

Many thanks, Coimbra!

Linha de Fuga aims to document all the activities it promotes as a way of diffusing artistic practices and the production of knowledge through the arts. This edition was documented by the two participant-documenters and the result may be seen in
Documentation and Archive.