The second edition of the project “Stories in the shadow of the montado”, with comic strip stories to raise awareness about the preservation of the montado, will begin to be distributed this September in the Alentejo municipality of Odemira.
The project, coordinated by Hugo Tornelo and Rita Gonzalez, which takes the form of a comic book newspaper, is promoted by the Ronha cultural association and has the support of the municipality, through the “Odemira Criativa” arts support program.
“The second edition [of the project] promises to offer the public more quality content and continue to promote environmental awareness of the montado,” Hugo Tornelo explained to the Lusa news agency today.
This person added that the work also aims to “create a feeling of belonging in the population of Odemira, by describing areas and landscapes that are familiar to them, illustrating them with different stories”.
In this second edition of “Stories in the shadow of the montado”, the four comic stories have texts by Filipa Martins, Joana Bértholo, Valério Romão and Afonso Cabral, illustrated by Patrícia Guimarães, Joana Mosi, Bernardo Majer and Ricardo Batista.
“We chose the authors, creating 'pairs' that we think make sense according to the tone of the writing and the graphic style”, revealed Hugo Tornelo.
In addition to the stories, at the end of the work good practices for the preservation of montado are presented, to try to raise awareness among 'readers' of the need to regenerate this native species.
“I’m not saying that this comic is an agent of change, but it could help in that regard,” he stressed.
The second edition of “Stories in the shadow of the montado” has a print run of around 6.000 copies, which will be distributed free of charge throughout the municipality of Odemira, from cafés and pharmacies to parish councils and tourist offices.
“It’s a way of reaching a lot of people in a very large and dispersed municipality”, explained Hugo Tornelo.
This project was born in 2022, after Hugo Tornelo and Rita Gonzalez had acquired agricultural land in the parish of Relíquias, in the municipality of Odemira, where there was a plot of montado, “part of which was diseased”.
“We realized – and we have been learning – that the montado, being a forest and a very rich ecosystem in Portugal, is in decline. A large part of it is sick and, when we realized this, we also began to want to regenerate and recover it”, he said.
This desire ended up giving rise to “Stories in the shade of the montado”, whose first edition, in September 2022, had stories by Afonso Cruz, Luís Afonso, Ana Margarida de Carvalho and Ana Bárbara Pedrosa, illustrated by Joana Afonso, Marta Teives, Nuno Saraiva and João Maio Pinho.
“We thought it would be interesting to bring these two worlds together and use comics as a platform to show that montado is in decline, partly due to climatic factors but also due to poor agricultural management and human influence,” he said.
The work ended up being well received by the population, giving rise to the second edition, which will now begin to be distributed. The digital version can be found on the website that bears the name of the project and where the first edition is available.
“We felt there was room to continue and to reinforce the message, to offer people good stories, well written and well designed, paying homage to the montado”, he concluded.
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