Remains of Babel's
Tower
A project for Imaginarius festival that crosses the myth of Babel's Tower with the role of Language in the social and cultural inclusion of the migrant community living in Santa Maria da Feira, conveying to Words an aesthetic and pedagogical mission in urban space.
02_MEU ESTÚDIO
After the Great Flood, when all societies in the world still spoke the same language, the peoples of Babylonia came together to build a city-tower that, rising to unprecedented heights, would allow its inhabitants to escape new risings of water. The undertaking went so well that God considered it an attack on his omnipotence and, to thwart such blatant blasphemy, created a set of different languages, so that the builders could no longer understand each other and the construction would fail.
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The Tower of Babel was left unfinished, people all over the world continued to live without being able to immediately understand – or accept – the strangers they met and only with the evolution of civilization did Humanity find solutions to get around the continuous obstacles presented by different languages.
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To demonstrate how God did not foresee everything – or how He also knew how to adapt – we reflected on the reality of Santa Maria da Feira: in 2019, official data indicated that almost 1,400 citizens of more than 60 nationalities lived in the municipality. We decided to work with some people of those countries and, among the migrants who were willing to tell us their story, we chose 11 families.
Whatever the language we interacted in, this project is made from their words. â–
With the Etta Ermini Dance Company
Migrants involved in the "Remains of Babel's Tower" project explored with British choreographer Etta Ermini the way in which certain concepts may be communicated through body movement without the use of verbal language. The initiative was part of the artistic residency that brought the company's dancers and acrobats to the Imaginarius creation center.
Describe your image
The in-person component of the project
Between the 27th and 30th May 2021, part of the contents of this project are publicly exhibited among the trees and lake of Quinta do Castelo de Santa Maria da Feira, which is included in Oporto’s Grand Route of Historical Gardens. Visits will require prior reservation and are subject to restrictions in capacity due to the current public health context. Bookings may be made at http://bit.ly/ImaginariusBOL.
