The 5th edition of Mexe proposes a meeting with several ways to produce “the common” now. In times of blurring of the essential, of fabricated realities and multiple crises, confusion takes hold strategically and brings with it the fear that dominates our daily lives. The invitation to MEXER (move) in "common" for a week invites us to question the rigid normative life logics that are presented to us as unique paths to the deadlocks we live as a human collective. Our focus is the "common", the way to construct it in a participated logic, generating alternatives that are apparently "impossible", but that become possible in the face of breathing and deciding dispel confusion. We are seduced by diversity, the constructive confrontation, the horizontal and responsible relationships for stimulating human evolution and democracy, which is in a very fragile state these days. 

We take risks, in content and shape, with a programming that tries to speak from the realities and not about them. We take risks, trying to overcome fears and experiencing based on the power of being collective. We risk with citizens, artists, local communities, several collectives, formal and informal partners. We risk inviting you to unexpected meetings that cross: people that would not meet in any other way, the material and immaterial, the visible and the invisible, the local and the global, the public and the private and distinct areas. We risk the cooperation with 34 partners, calling more than 400 people from 27 groups of 6 countries to 70 activities in 21 transversal spaces in the entire city. We risk because we do it together and because we see life as a continuous celebration.

In an integrating coming and going between the city centre and the periphery, this edition belongs to everyone who wants to MOVE, with particular emphasis to young people, the programming in public spaces and the thriving African, Latin American and South European artistic creation. We deepen and build new complicity relationships with national and international partners, which are vital for the accomplishment of this edition.

In the field of thought, “the common” embodies a joint and unusual organization between 9 entities of higher education, Portuguese and from foreign, with the participation of more than 100 researchers, in the 3rd edition of EIRPAC (International Meeting of Reflection on Community Artistic Practices). Together we have created Mexe Casa, a proposal of proximity experience for non-residents of Porto that includes accommodation, food and access to the programming. We propose the implementation of Mexe Praça, which expresses itself from a fundamental meeting point between this week’s key players at Jardim de São Lázaro (St. Lazare Garden), with a daily musical proposal at night and the production of a fanzine, answering the urgency to register the daily life of these days. This space will also receive the great Parade that closes this edition, which will include all the participating groups. Finally, Mexe Cidade invites structures and collectives of the city from different areas that want to be associated to this discussion within its usual scope of action. In this edition, we keep most of the programming with free access and Portuguese Sign Language interpretation, strengthening our concern about democratisation and cultural democracy as processes still to be completed.

We meet at the risk, in what there is still to build, in the body to body, in the face of fear and in the space of an artistic creation that is from everyone and to everyone. This is our commitment, continuing to face the inconvenience like a catalyst to the production of “the common” which is so necessary, specifically in times of confusion. We are enlightened by the contradictory, diversity and multiple perspectives. We are summoned to inhabit the uncertain as a terrain aerated to creation and production of new configurations of artistic creation, programming, political and ways of life. We are thankful for the opportunity to be together and for the reality of building other ways to live the city, even if only for one week, as a training that prepares us to resist those days that are not “common” yet.
We are MOVING!

Hugo Cruz
Artistic director

The 3rd edition of EIRPAC will take place on 16, 17 and 18 September 2019 in Porto, as part of the 5th edition of MEXE_International Art and Community Festival, focusing on the theme “The Search for the Common - contributions of artistic practices to other possible future”.

Considering the complexity of this field of action and the growing importance that these practices have been acquiring in contemporary artistic creations, understanding these as inseparable from the social and cultural manifestations and experiences of communities, it is essential to create spaces for reflection and sharing among all its stakeholders. The III EIRPAC is strongly inspired by the social movements that emerge from the proliferating political transformations around the world and the emergence of new and renewed spaces for participation and artistic creation. In moments of restlessness and hopelessness, how do artistic practices imply the projection and collective construction of new realities and new futures?

encontro.mexe@gmail.com

(+351) 915 920 764