Pieces “Sem Título” (No Title) and “Pessoa não humana”(Non-Human Person) win Artemar Estoril 2014

Exclusively created to participate in Artemar, the piece “Sem Título” (No Title) convinced the jury, who attributed the piece with an award in the value of 8 thousand Euros, because it allowed interaction with the public and invoked a great tradition of the Municipality: “people could draw making this piece identify itself with the marine paintings which are of great tradition in Cascais”, revealed the Commissioner of the competition/exhibition, Luísa Soares de Oliveira.

For Carlos Carreiras the underlying objectives of Artemar have been met with: “what we want to do is join the cultural values with the environmental values in order to safeguard our coast and the resources that the sea has to offer us. When this is handled with the creativity and talent of the artists, this becomes a way to promote these values and create awareness in the citizens so that they respect them more”, he said.

“The piece established a very curious relationship with the public”, stated Orlando Franco. Concerned with the alignment of the "window" which the piece offered, André Banha confesses that the concern was "for people to be able to draw the silhouette of the cliff, the houses in the background and part of the beach and sea".

With 1,182 votes, the public unanimously decided (71%) on the piece “Pessoa não humana” (Non-Human Person) by Pedro Manuel Fernandes and Filipe von Mayer Resi, which received an award of 1,000 Euros. Dedicated to the conservation of cetaceans, this piece aims to raise awareness for the protection of the rights of whales and dolphins, considered by the Declaration of the Rights of Cetaceans in Helsinki (2010) as non-human persons, given the confirmed presence of "spindle" brain cells, so far only found in humans.

"We partnered with the University of Lisbon and we are carrying out an analysis of science communication with the objective of raising the public awareness of marine environmental and climate changes. People had a very good reaction. I noticed that this piece also attracted people who are already related to the sea, from teachers, biologists, scientists, but also fishermen. It was a success".

82 candidates competed in the 6th Edition of ArteMar Estoril and nine of the 10 pieces selected for the competition were on display from the 16th of May to the 15th of June on the Cascais-Estoril promenade.

Promoted by Câmara Municipal de Cascais (Municipal Council of Cascais) and Fundação D. Luís I (D. Luís I Foundation), Artemar is aimed at promoting works with a high aesthetic quality and a strong ecological message as it awards works of art created using recyclable, reusable materials and/or recyclable items taken from the sea or which symbolically represent this natural element.

Competing pieces: “Noah”, by Peter Gilbert; “Symbiotic Sights”, by Susana Aleixo Lopes; “Microrganismo Oblíquo” (Obliquus Microorganism), by Raquel Beatriz Martins; “Sem Título” (No Title), by André Banha and Orlando Franco; “Cetus” by Nina Marcon Linden Mayer; “Kraken” by Joana Pinto Oliveira; “Pessoa Não-Humana” (Non-Human Person) by Pedro Manuel Madeira Fernandes and Filipe Costa Veiga Van Mayer Reis; “A Barbatana” (The Fin) by Cristina Maria Seguro Seco; “Following The Sun” by Wiktoria Szawiel and João Filipe; and “Mare Incognitum”, by Sebastião Borges Figueiredo Ascenso Pires.

About ArteMar | Competition/Exhibition which awards works of art created using recyclable, reusable materials and/or recyclable items taken from the sea or which represent this natural element. The competition is open to all artists who are interested in participating, both Portuguese or foreign, and each artist can present a maximum of two sculpture projects.