This year’s Iminente festival will take over Lisbon’s Terreiro do Paço, in October, with free admission, to “think of a city without margins, only with centers”, the organization announced today.
“We’re going to bring all the communities that have worked with us over the years,” said festival director Carla Cardoso at a press conference about the “Imminent Takeover” edition, scheduled for October 14 and 15 in Terreiro do Paço.
This year’s musical line-up includes Ferro Gaita, Omar Souleyman, Pedro Mafama, Batucadeiras das Olaias, Rita Vian, Sam The Kid, Pongo, Dino D’Santiago, Branko, Família Gitana, Rome Streetz and T.W.A. among many others.
After having taken place in Lisbon at the Monsanto Panoramic and on some land in the Matinha area, Iminente is now ‘occupying’ one of the capital’s central squares, a “heritage space” that represents “a very big challenge” for the organization.
“We’re used to this freedom to express ourselves on the walls, in the streets, but [Iminente taking place in Terreiro do Paço] is fundamental as a space for visibility. And that’s the mission that Iminente works on. For us it’s important to show in this center that there are other centers, and that people can go and discover them,” said Carla Cardoso, speaking to Lusa on the sidelines of the press conference.
On October 14 and 15, the organization wants to “show another city, to the country and to tourists passing through; to show that there is another Lisbon”.
To this end, the motto given to the artists was “about the idea of decentralizing, thinking about cities without margins, only with centers”.
In this ‘take over’ of Terreiro do Paço, Iminente will bring together, in addition to “all the communities” it has worked with, several artists who have been with the festival “since the first edition” in 2016 in Oeiras.
“To bring us their emerging artists, to give a stage of visibility to the projects that are being built by various communities in territories that are said to be more on the margins,” said Carla Cardoso.
Among the visual artists invited to this edition are Vhils (one of the founders of Iminente), Cássio Markowski, Dish and Fiumani, who will be joined by Ângela Ferreira who, with dancer and choreographer Piny and musician Scúru Fitchádu, will create an installation to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the revolution of April 25, 1974.
In addition, around 70 artists will take part in a “collective installation of flags, which will reflect this thought: what is a city where there are no margins, where everything is centers, where there is more diversity, where the space for expression is more widespread – there are more voices on these stages”.
Today’s press conference took place in the Rego neighborhood, one of the districts where the festival has been running “community workshops” since June.
The results of the workshops will be shown at Terreiro do Paço, in an exhibition that this year will be curated by the neighborhood associations for the first time.
Meanwhile, on September 16, 17, 23 and 24, there will be ‘open days’ in each of these neighborhoods (Alta de Lisboa, Rego, Vale de Alcântara and Vale de Chelas), to show the results to the local communities, but which are also accessible to the general population.
The Lisbon City Council’s Councillor for Culture, Diogo Moura, stressed the importance of “giving visibility” to the work that Iminente has been doing in some of the city’s neighborhoods.
“It makes sense to decentralize and show what’s being done in the neighbourhoods, where a lot happens and there are a lot of problems and challenges that the rest of the city often lives next to and doesn’t see. It was important to give this stage and so we accepted the challenge of going to the city center, and in particular to Terreiro do Paço,” he told Lusa.
Unlike other editions, the artworks that will be shown at the festival will not remain in the space.
In addition to the concerts, which will take place on three stages, and the art installations, Iminente’s program includes talks, performances, gastronomy, urban sports and stores run by independent projects and associations.
The capacity of the Iminente venue, which will be free to enter, has yet to be determined.
