Maria Lúcia Cruz Correia and Vera Mantero share their research in this performance-debate. They propose to raise awareness of our individual and collective sense of ecology, the understanding of environmental crimes, and the role of the rights of nature. Experts, lawyers, activists, artists, guardians of nature, and nature itself will be in conversation with each other. The format will be as strange as the bottom of the sea, involving restorative justice, a performance, whale sex, rituals, participation, silence, and a contract with the sea.

This presentation is part of an on-going research and creative process being developed in the context of the Terra Batida project. Due to the public health measures in effect in Belgium and Portugal, Maria Lúcia Cruz Correia will participate in this event via video conference. A final performative result will be presented in 2021.

This event includes the participation of jurist Maria Inês Gameiro (Nov 23) and curator and researcher Margarida Mendes (Nov 24).

Terra Batida is a constellation of people, practices and knowledge taking a stand against ecological violence and politics of abandonment. Local knowledge of socio-environmental conflicts combine with an active network to resist extractive abuses and to practice care — to speculate, fabulate, and build visions and reflections of the future for our weary, worn-out worlds. All Terra Batida events are free to attend.

In 2020, Terra Batida brings participants from dance, film, performance and visual arts into collaboration with researchers, members of cooperatives and activists in Ourique, Castro Verde, Montemor-o-Novo, Aveiro, Ílhavo, and Gafanha da Nazaré. These specific, local starting points in Portugal are a springboard for thinking and operating at multiple levels. In Alentejo, the discussion is about desertification; super-intensive farming and related extractive practices around migrant labour; toxic, deactivated mines; seas of greenhouses on the coast; the lack of water and people; and the conservation of native species and other forms of community resistance. In Aveiro, questions address the rapid erosion of the coastline, port traffic, rising sea levels, and the celulose industry. These problems are at the crux of social, racial and interspecies conflict.

At the Alkantara Festival, Terra Batida presents a programme of performances, research sessions, and talks at São Luiz Teatro Municipal. In this first meeting, Marta Lança and Rita Natálio present the project, its events at the Alkantara Festival, and its future.

Jornal Mapa - Terra Batida Special Edition, with Samuel Melro

In this conversation, Samuel Melro (archeologist and Mapa member) discusses the editorial project and articles in this special edition of Jornal Mapa, produced in collaboration with Terra Batida.

Mapa is a media project and a place of resistance in times of war. Through information, debate, and discussion, Mapa develops criticism as a way to nourish thought and the practice of autonomy and freedom in all aspects of life. Mapa is not connected to any economic group or political party. Mapa publishes news articles, reports, investigative journalism, chronicles, photos, illustrations, and cartoons, with an attentive look at environmental problems in territories near and far.