The National Culture Center (CNC) and the Institute of Ibero-Atlantic Culture (ICIA) are organizing in Portimão, on the next 14th and 15th of October, the Annual Meeting of the Portuguese Network of the Anna Lindh Foundation (FAL).
This year's meeting is inspired by the Mediterranean itineraries of Manuel Teixeira Gomes, where, among other topics, forms and processes of internal organization will be discussed in order to consolidate the notion of “network” among its members, looking for new forms of intervention to spread FAL's values and objectives.
The program also includes a literary dinner, limited to members of the Network, on Mediterranean poetry, entitled “The Sea of Ulysses”, to be held in a tavern in the city, with interventions by the poet Nuno Júdice and poetry reading by the members da Rede, and the conference “Naufrágio com spectator”, during which Maria da Graça Ventura, Guilherme d'Oliveira Martins, Isilda Varges Gomes and Nuno Júdice, moderated by João Ventura, with reference to the ethical and humanist legacy of the writer and traveler Manuel Teixeira Gomes, will address the current issue of the Mediterranean, namely the refugee crisis and the urgency of the Euro-Mediterranean dialogue.
The Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation (FAL) comprises 42 countries and its mission is to promote intercultural dialogue and mutual knowledge between people and societies on the southern and northern shores of the Mediterranean.
The Portuguese Network was formed in 2005 at the same time as the creation of the Anna Lindh Foundation itself, and is currently made up of 40 members from the most diverse areas of activity in the country's cultural and social life.
The Sea of Ulysses [literary dinner with poetry recital from the Mediterranean*]
14 October | 19:30 pm | Tavern da Maré | portimao
The Mediterranean is less the sea than its shores. The banks that extend inland to where the olive tree grows and where, on a poetic coasting trip, we propose to dock to listen to the sometimes similar and sometimes contradictory voices of poets who profess a "faith in the South", making their poetry a the song of lovers who know that the “Mediterranean is not just a geography”, but also an open wound in the soul that will never be closed, never forgotten, and that can even be healed by words, so that the Mediterranean can return to to be the sea that is in the middle of the lands.
This is the reason for the invitation to a recital guided by the poet Nuno Júdice, in which each one of the speakers will lend their voice to the poets of the Mediterranean, so that, despite the turmoil that today agitates its waters, we can find, on its banks of paper, the hope of a “common sea”.
Introduction and comments by Nuno Júdice | Moderation by João Ventura
(*limited participation to 30 Portuguese FAL Network members and guests)
Shipwreck with Spectator [Conference on the Mediterranean]
15 October | 15:00 pm | Manuel Teixeira Gomes House (room capacity: 50-60 people)
The Ancients considered the olive tree as a symbol and territorial mark of the Mediterranean. For Manuel Teixeira Gomes, a man from the South, it was the fig tree that took him on business trips to the cold and gloomy countries of the North and that gave him the resources to unravel the rosary of cities in the luminous South on leisure trips: Andalusia, Catalonia, Italy, Greece, North Africa, Asia Minor.
As Nietzsche professed a kind of “faith in the South”, preferring the Maghreb to the European. Mediterranean. Small precarious worlds that History slowly shaped before making them sink in the painful waters of a sea that was once common and that today, instead of Nietzsche and Manuel Teixeira Gomes, as passive spectators of an alien drama, makes us to lose both “the faith in the South” and in the North.
It is about this current Mediterranean exposed to the south to wars and the dramas of the endless migratory stream they provoke, and to the north to the economic and social crisis that stirs up tensions and unleashes fear and xenophobia, but which can also be a space for new solidarities that we will address in this conference inspired by the ethical and humanist legacy of Manuel Teixeira Gomes.
Speakers:
Isilda Varges Gomes
Maria da Graca Mateus Ventura
Guilherme d'Oliveira Martins
Nuno Judice
Moderator: João Ventura
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