United Artists

The idea is to give visitors “a vibrant and very poetic interpretation of this place”, explains German artist Nada Mandelbaum, who has always been at the front of this organisation. “We want the public to be able to let their imaginations fly, and become visually involved” in art and the landscape.

A perfect example is the wind machine that artist Milita is creating. “As the estuary here is an environmentally protected area, I want to present something that alludes to alternative energy, and the sort of thing our ancestors would have done”, she explains. “This machine transforms wind into energy, energy into water and water into life – and life is poetry” she smiles.

Nada Mandelbaum will be exhibiting creative sculpture: dancers that pirouette upon the wind – representing the four seasons of the year.

While Aiden Bremner, a Scottish artist who fell in love with Lagos – where he has lived and worked since 1994 – scours local beaches, picking up driftwood, or better still, remnants of traditional latter-day fishing boats. “My idea is to use all this material to create an imaginary bird”, he tells.

In fact, he’ll be creating a sculpture commemorating the work of the RIAS bird rescue centre, based not far away. “I remember the year that they looked after a number of Griffon Vultures that had landed, confused, in the Algarve. I think that today, more and more people are feeling that way: confused”, he adds with a touch of irony.

“And maybe the many fishermen also feel a bit lost without their wooden boats that have been scrapped due to new European laws, and substituted by fibreglass ones”.

Peter de Jong is also intrigued by the disappearance of old crafts. “I’m going to do a sculpture that brings together 40 clay octopus pots – the sort that used to be used to trap octopuses” and, which today have been substituted by plastic traps.

Plastic is coincidentally the material that’ll represent the union of these artists – in a collective installation to be created along the wooden walkway running beside the shoreline.

Sílvia Calveti, the inspiration behind the idea, explains: “these days, it is practically impossible to live without plastic. It’s not good, but it has become part of modern, life”. So much so that according to Peter de Jong, the artists are planning a sculpture made wholly out of rubbish collected in the “parque” before the opening of the exhibition.

But returning to the walkway idea. “We’re going to use a minimum of 350 coloured 5-litre bottles of water, filled in a gradual way which, all together, will give the notion of the movements of the tide. Each colour will represent one of us – and they’ll be separated by a flagon of clear water where the name of/ an object/ or personal message from, each artist will be placed”, adds Sílvia Calveti.

The works will be exhibited outside as well as inside the Marim environmental education centre (reserved mainly for the paintings): works by artists like German Seegrun Lübke who “wants to capture the light of low tide at midday”, and the “lyric abstraction” of British artist John Lamonby, who has lived only a kilometre away for the last four years.

One of the objectives of this exhibition is to bring some life to the Marim centre. It should be added that the initiative has no institutional backing – all costs are paid for by the artists themselves. “There’s just one restaurant in Almancil that’s donating some dishes for the opening. We’d love it if some others in the area lent us some support!” added Nada Mandelbaum.

The show will remain open until the middle of June, while the «Algarve Artists Network» will also be taking over the management of «Studio 21» in Loulé from April. “It’ll be a new experience! We’ll open three days a week, and see how it goes”, told Peter de Jong.

Culture and artists - are they officially aware of each other?

“Culture is made by people, for people. This initiative, born from a group of 24 people, marks a difference in a region that is often defined solely for its tourism – forgetting the panoply of people that contribute towards making the Algarve a little better”, explains Dália Paulo, in charge of the Algarve’s board of culture which is supporting the artists’ event.

But if anyone was to ask this institution where one was to find this human capital, answers would be unforthcoming, “We don’t have any kind of directory yet”, she explains. “We’re collating something we’re calling the “Carta Cultural de Portugal” – which, in the future, will bring together all this information on a national level.

“It’ll be a platform of contacts and knowledge, and also a blueprint of what exists in the Algarve in the way of creators, producers and programmers”, to be useful, in future, “to a general or specialised public”, available and centralised online.

“Up until now, all the regional branch of culture has collated has been in terms of equipment” not human capital. We’ve also got some details of associations, but not of individuals or informal groups.

Since January this year, the branch has been debating how best to elaborate this “Carta Cultural de Portugal” – which will also take advantage of work done already by local authorities. In the Algarve, very little material exists, except in Aljezur and Lagos, which both regularly organise exhibitions by local artists.

And what should be included in the “carta”? “The idea is that people can inscribe themselves. The criteria is whether their activity is professional or amateur” when it comes to culture. “They could even be people starting out as artists. The idea is to include everybody, on various levels,” explains Dália Paulo. “What interests us in this database is to gauge every year how many new artists are working in the region”. All the work should be ready by 2013.