Uplifting Campus Paulo Cunha e Silva is inaugurated on the day the former councillor for Culture would celebrate its 59th anniversary

The Campus extends for exactly 900m2. The former Escola Básica José Gomes Ferreira, the classrooms and even outdoor spaces transformed into creative studios and spaces that will be utilized by the city’s artistic community. The Campus Paulo Cunha e Silva is the new residency centre for performing arts and the doors are open.

The CAMPUS Paulo Cunha e Silva was created as a tribute to the former councillor for Culture of Porto City Hall, one of the leading figures as regards culture, in Portugal. Today, 9th June, Paulo Cunha e Silva would celebrate his 59th anniversary, and what best way to pay him the rightful tribute than to inaugurate a working space that will financially support, through his programme, artistic projects that are in a creation and research phase, providing the necessary conditions for artists and professionals in the artistic sector, that would not have, otherwise, the means to attend a studio, arrange a meeting room or even a working table.

To support the creation process of artists and professionals in the artistic sector, by allocating a programme of circa 90 thousand euros, and addressing working spaces shortage: these are the goals of this multidisciplinary place, established in the former Escola Básica José Gomes Ferreira, which was rehabilitated, in an investment of about one million euros.

The need to establish the Campus Paulo Cunha e Silva, recalled Rui Moreira, derived from the “scarcity of such spaces, that boost logistics, and financial conditions for the research and creation stages, especially those who work from the city, but also from other artists in the country or other places in the Globe that can find in Porto, the appropriate territory for artistic creation”.

Rui Moreira, the Mayor of Porto, and Tiago Guedes, Director of the Performing Arts Department of Ágora and Artistic Director of Porto Municipal Theatre, presented, earlier this afternoon, the CAMPUS Paulo Cunha e Silva, the new centre for artistic residencies and a working space for the performing arts in Porto, with paid and supported creation projects that will combine both experimenting and a sense of community. The space was established at the Travessa dos Campos, 144, nearby the Praça do Marquês and the Rua do Bonjardim.

The new residency centre is not targeted at hosting public presentations, as it aspires to be a working place of sorts: interaction, interchange, research, creation, rehearsals, just to name a few, in such disciplines as dance, theatre, animated forms, contemporary circus, for instance.

Based in Porto, but looking abroad for partnerships and collaborations, the CAMPUS Paulo Cunha e Silva will be run by the artistic team of Porto Municipal Theatre (TMP), also in collaboration with local professionals in the artistic sector, and always seeking to meet the needs of new artistic formats. In addition, this is a “paper free” space and its activity, programming, and communication will be digitally managed from the official website.

Open calls from 9 June

Starting today, the open call period for artistic residencies, individual or collective, is open. For 56 weeks, the four studios and open air spaces, as well as the support of professionals can be utilized for periods of two or7and eight weeks.

The selected artists will be granted a weekly amount of 500 euros and Tiago Guedes claimed he “wishes the space works and an incubator”, where the projects that are initiated at the campus can be transferred and presented in other venues in the city, namely at Porto Municipal theatre or the DDD- Days of the Dance Festival.

In addition to the artistic residencies, there are the open calls for the technical residencies, which are held at the Theatre Campo Alegre, for three period throughout the year.

The second edition of the “Reclamar Tempo” programme, which was launched during the first lockdown and urged artists to continue working and creating, is the second offer of the Campus Paulo Cunha e Silva. The projects selected in the first edition are ongoing as of May and will be presented to the public, on 12 and 13 June, for two open days.

The visit to the new Campus Paulo Cunha e Silva was also attended by the Director of the Museu da Cidade, Nuno Faria, and the Artistic Director of Batalha – Cinema Centre, Guilherme Blanc, the vice-Mayor of Porto City Hall, Filipe Araújo, the councillors of the Municipal Executive, the councillors of the independent Municipal Councillors, the councillors of the PS and the President of the Municipal Assembly, Miguel Pereira Leite.