Nodar Summer School 2012: Documenting and reinventing the memory of a territory
A theoretical and practical residency training program
16 – 22 July 2012 / 7 days / 60 hours
Locations: Social Center of Carvalhais | Rural villages of Gralheira Mountain Range, São Pedro do Sul

This is a time for the rediscovery of territories, its landscapes and heritage resources, both tangible and intangible. It is also a time of production and dissemination, sometimes massive and chaotic, of audiovisual material related to territories. However, there are many misconceptions on the loose about the what could really mean documenting the real using audiovisual media. We therefore need to reflect, with both depth and patience, upon a series of crucial aspects: what areas of knowledge are useful for documenting territories? which sensory aspects may be related to an enhanced experience of a place? What can and should be given back to the documented communities? How to escape immediate impressions and to capture in innovative ways the deep and subtle meanings of the cultural magma of a territory: its archaisms, changes, contaminations, contradictions, endogenous and exogenous social representations?

This 7-day intensive course offers a critical sharing of some of the methodologies and work practices developed since 2006 by Binaural/Nodar in the Gralheira mountain range (Center Portugal), based on a direct and continuous contact with rural communities and in an exploratory approach in terms of concepts, meanings and used media.