Project developed during the residency ‘Left of the centre’.
In Situ workshop coordinated by Kris Van’Hoff.
September 2017. Ponte Mucela. Portugal
The project reflects on the compressed time experience in contemporary cities trough the contrast of the expanded time experience in the village where the residency happened, Ponte Mucela.
Ponte Mucela is located in the mid of Portugal and it used to be on one of the principal routes between Spain and Portugal before the construction of a new highway not passing by the village. After the construction of the new infrastructure the village loose most of its comercial activity and inhabitants.
The project is based in a fiction where the village turns into a clandestine Time Rehabilitation center. This center shelters people that come from the city suffering time compression (the participants of the residency). Trough different ludic, creative, and other every-day activities of the village, the time sicks manage to expand their time experience and recover they creative abilities that were atrophied by the work routine in the city . In the fiction this village manage to stay in an autonomous time and space because of remaining forgotten by the state and comercial interests.
This fiction was materialized in a vijing performance with live narration of the story. The visuals were a mixture of different documentation that was collected during the residency trough video, photography and animation of the ‘time sicks’ and their experience in the time rehabilitation center. The visuals were projected in the old oven of the village and the spoken word was made by Anne Bielig.
