«Tributo às Gravuras do Vale do Côa — As gravuras não sabem nadar

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TRIBUTO ÀS GRAVURAS DO VALE DO RIO CÔA As gravuras não sabem nadar TRIBUTE TO THE ENGRAVINGS OF THE CÔA RIVER VALLEY The engravings do not know how to swim

pp. 2-3: São Gabriel, Vila Nova de Foz Côa, 1996

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Pedreiras do Poio, Vila Nova de Foz Côa, 1996 Vale do rio Côa, Vila Nova de Foz Côa, 1996

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Canada do Inferno, Vila Nova de Foz Côa, 1996

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Ribeira de Piscos, Vila Nova de Foz Côa, 1996

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TRIBUTO ÀS GRAVURAS DO VALE DO RIO CÔA As gravuras não sabem nadar TRIBUTE TO THE ENGRAVINGS OF THE CÔA RIVER VALLEY The engravings do not know how to swim Textos | Texts

Duarte Belo Pedro Proença Fotografias | Photographs

Duarte Belo Organização | Organization

Ana Pessoa Mesquita

D O C U M E N TA

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Mário Cesariny, As Gravuras Não Sabem Nadar, 1995 Acrílico sobre papel | Acrylic on paper (obra realizada sobre o cartaz | work produced on the poster As Gravuras Não Sabem Nadar ), 98 × 70 cm

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Pessoal, mas transmissível Ana Pessoa Mesquita Organizadora da exposição Tributo às Gravuras do Vale do Rio Côa

Tenho de confessar que, no início, era apenas entusiasmo, vivia o momento através da euforia dos outros; do Emílio Mesquita, do Hermínio Monteiro; a maior parte deles transmontanos, como eu, mas não só, eram muitos mais e de todas as regiões. Sentia-os unidos e empenhados na causa das gravuras do rio Côa. Assistia, com algum distanciamento, ao misto de inquietação e esperança que se respirava no grupo.

Partilhei a revolta das incertezas na batalha gravuras versus barragem, o entusiasmo das manifestações quando pendia para o lado gravuras; rejubilava com a adesão, sempre em crescendo, de inúmeras personalidades públicas.

Tanta gente a escrever, e tão bem, sobre aquelas nossas gravuras!

Até que, naquele ritmo, sem me dar conta, a causa entranhou-se-me. Era já a minha terra, a minha paisagem, as minhas gentes e as minhas gravuras. Não consigo determinar o momento exacto em que aconteceu. Mas foi assim, e foi forte. As sensibilidades pessoais, dizem, muitas vezes, só têm sentido para o próprio.

Hoje, com o distanciamento de quase vinte anos, começo a acreditar que foi naquele 5 de Maio, o momento em que esta exposição aconteceu, que se firmou, definitivamente, esta devoção.

Aquele espaço da livraria da Assírio & Alvim, nesse fim de dia já caloroso de Maio, com toda a gente reunida à volta dos quadros, dos seus autores, escritores, músicos, foi um momento único e indissociável do que passei a sentir a partir daí. Sou obrigada a acrescentar, para que melhor se entenda, que nunca mais me separei dela. Até hoje.

Nos meses seguintes, quase como uma coincidência, todas as notícias que nos chegavam eram no bom sentido! O desejo mais ansiado, a preservação das gravuras, acabaria por concretizar-se. Foram momentos felizes, aqueles.

Por isso, o privilégio é grande, ao ter a oportunidade de proporcionar a outros o reviver daquele(s) momento(s), no espaço que agora é, definitivamente, o das gravuras rupestres do vale do rio Côa, e poder mostrar a arte que a arte despertou.

Felizmente, não necessito de dissertar sobre as gravuras, sobre o seu valor, sobre o que representam para a humanidade, porque já tantos o fizeram e tão bem! Apenas tenho de expressar o sentimento egoísta de quem regressa a casa e pode disfrutar da beleza da paisagem agreste e única, dos seus odores fortes e dos contrastes de luz do fim de dia em qualquer altura do ano.

E das gravuras, pois claro, que, afinal, nunca precisaram de aprender a nadar.

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Personal, but transferable Ana Pessoa Mesquita Organiser of the exhibition Tribute to the Engravings of the Côa River Valley

I have to confess that, in the beginning, it was just the enthusiasm. I experienced the moment through the euphoria of the others, like Emílio Mesquita and Hermínio Monteiro.

Most of them natives of the region of Trás-os-Montes like myself, but not exclusively. There were many more and from all parts of the country. I could feel how united and committed they were to the cause of the Côa River engravings. From a distance I could see the mixture of disquiet and hope running through the group.

I also got caught up in the outrage surrounding the uncertainties of the engravingsversus-dam battle, in the enthusiasm of the demonstrations for the cause of the engravings.

I too shared in the jubilation as countless public figures joined the cause.

So many people writing so well about our engravings!

Until, with things moving so quickly and without quite realising it, the cause had taken a hold me. Now it was my land, my landscape, my people and my engravings. I cannot determine the exact moment when this happened. But it happened and it was overwhelming.

Personal sensibilities, they often say, only have meaning for ourselves as individuals.

Today, almost 20 years later, I am beginning to believe that it was on that 5 May, the date when this exhibition took place, that this devotion was definitively established.

That warm May afternoon in the Assírio & Alvim bookshop, with everyone gathered around the paintings and the artists, writers and musicians; it was a unique moment which is inseparable from everything I have felt since. I feel obliged to add, for the record, that I've maintained this devotion ever since. To this day.

In the following months, almost as a coincidence, all the news coming to us was good news! Our most fervent wish, the preservation of the engravings, would eventually come true. Those were happy moments.

For this reason, I feel incredibly privileged to give others the opportunity to relive those moments at what is now, definitively, the site of the rock engravings of the Côa river valley and to show the art that art has awakened.

Fortunately, I don't need to talk about the engravings, about their value, about what they represent for humanity; so many have done it already and so well! I just need to express that selfish feeling of someone returning home to enjoy the beauty of this harsh and unique landscape, the strong smells and twilight contrasts that happen here throughout the year.

And the engravings, of course, which — in the spirit of the famous slogan at the time — never had to learn how to swim.

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OBRAS | WORKS

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Manuel Zimbro, Torrão de Terra, 1995 Guache sobre papel | Gouache on paper, 48,5 × 34 cm

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Graça Morais, Horror, 2016 Tinta-da-china, acrílico e carvão sobre papel | Indian ink, acrylic and charcoal on paper, 100 × 70 cm Colecção da artista | Artist’s collection

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Gisella Santi, Ajudem-nos, 1995 Tapeçaria | Tapestry, 160 × 115 cm

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Return to where Duarte Belo

On 26 December 1993, I left Vila do Conde and headed in the direction of the city of Amarante, where I made my first stop. From there, I headed towards the Douro River, where I proceeded upstream along its banks, visiting a succession of points I had jotted down in an itinerary drawn from Raúl Proença and Santana Dionísio‘s Guide to Portugal.

Having traversed the region on lengthy hikes during my student days in Porto, I was embarking on the first of many journeys by car across Portugal to photograph its territory in minute and ever expanding detail. Two days later, on the 28th, I crossed the mouth of the Côa River and proceeded towards Castelo Melhor and Almendra, my ultimate destination being the Miranda plateau further north. It was my first time travelling through Foz Côa, a region marked by its intensely telluric character, expressed in a landscape where traditional modes of farming were practised and where an ensemble of archaeological remnants harkened back to ancient human settlements.

Unwittingly, I was entering a territory that would profoundly mark my journey of reading and understanding Portugal as a space. In the wake of this first trip, I would return to the Côa Valley on multiple occasions. My first trip back occurred a few months later in 1994. On 24 August, I crossed the mouth of the river once again and headed in the direction of Barca de Alva and Penedo Durão. By then, the landscape had changed considerably. It was summer and a prolonged drought with high temperatures was sweeping through the region.

Like many villages in the interior of Portugal, where a steady population drain had been occurring since the second half of the 20th century, Vila Nova de Foz Côa was in a state of decline. However, a new reality was bringing an unusual degree of dynamism to the area. In 1994, work had begun on the construction of a large hydroelectric dam near the mouth of the Côa River. Several months later came the announcement that an archaeological discovery had been made, significantly altering the course of the site‘s history and inscribing its geography onto the contemporary map. An ensemble of rock art engravings had been found. It quickly became apparent that this was a truly unique discovery of great importance. Dating from the Paleolithic, the engravings featured representations of animal figures, constituting one of the oldest records of the presence of human communities in Portugal. If the dam was completed, the engravings would become submerged under water. Thus began a heated debate between the dam‘s defenders and those who

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called for the preservation of the valley‘s archaeological and cultural heritage. By this time, a considerable amount had been invested in the dam‘s infrastructure and construction. When the project was suspended, the large hole in the earth that was to have been filled by the dam wall lay open, ready to receive the first layers of concrete. However, this did not transpire. Work on the stalled project ground to a halt. For months, the structures lay abandoned on the site, ready to be pressed back into service, but it was not to be. In August 1996, the Côa Valley Archaeological Park was established. The following year, its rock art was designated a national monument and the village’s status upgraded to that of a city. In 1998, the rock engravings were classified by UNESCO as a heritage of humanity.

Over many years, the valley was investigated by archaeologists, a process that continues to this day. What they discovered was not merely a handful of engraved panels: it was an ensemble of hundreds of engravings and archaeological sites dating from the Paleolithic to the Metal Ages and forming a continuum of rock engravings that extended into the mid 20th century.

In 2010, the Côa Museum opened its doors to the public, marking the culmination of a controversy that continues to evoke passionate reactions to this day — those who take only a cursory glance at the engravings without recognising the complexity of their context are apt to believe that such an artistic manifestation did not merit the dam’s cancellation.

Built on top of a promontory, the museum peers over the Côa and Douro valleys. From this unique and outstanding architectural edifice, one witnesses the grandiosity of a landscape that gave rise to one of the most renowned cultural manifestations of Paleolithic Man. Today, the Côa Valley is considered the most important open-air rock art site in the world.

Within these engravings lies the register of an origin; like photographs, they serve as retinal images, fixed for an extended time. They signify, in a profound way, the fixing of the visible, of knowledge, of a detachment from reality and its simultaneous duplication.

They mark the creation of a separate world, a rejection of a Nature regarded as severe and, to a large extent, hostile. These engravings also speak of a desire to suspend time.

They are the first forays of a humanity already conscious of its own condition. A species that had acquired a powerful tool of survival, that found itself on the field of battle and had spread across a vast territorial expanse had discovered an entire internal world.

Too early to be considered art, these were not paintings affixed to a wall. They were fixed images, scratched out of the earth and the rocks, for posterity. They spoke of a close connection to the food on which the very species and communities depended. They spoke of an ongoing struggle against a Nature that was complex, hard, cold and unpredictable.

Well before the advent of cities, these were the first outlines of a new home that would take thousands of years to build. Today, we carry within us the genetic code of this long journey of our ancestors.

In 2011, I returned to the site of the Côa River dam. At the bottom of the valley, everything seemed to exist outside of time. Perhaps the biggest difference from 1995 was the noticeable outcrop of trees that had grown on site and that now formed a visual curtain.

The silence was broken only by the sound of birds, the rustling of leaves, the insects and

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the swells of the river, whose flow had dropped significantly following a winter and spring of sparse rainfall. At night, I could hear the intermittent croaking of frogs, rising in intensity like the waves of an imaginary ocean. I was re-encountering the telluric force of a valley whose landscape had inspired the settlement over tens of thousands of years ago of human communities who had left behind a message for the future. I was re-encountering the timelessness of etchings left on rocks. Here I was again at the heart of the site, near the most important groupings of engravings in the valley. My return to this place also revealed changes in the landscape. Changes that eluded my reading of the spaces I visited.

A kind of dynamism that concealed a temporal vertigo of which we are often unaware. An unrelenting quality in Nature that went beyond morphology, erosion or vegetation.

At some point, the last worker would have abandoned the construction site. With nothing more to be removed, no one was called back to work. Today, only handfuls of people occasionally visit the ruins of what was never built. Silence. A closer look at the soil around the ruins reveals that Nature is taking back what was alien to it. Structures throughout the site are being enveloped in a process of re-naturalisation. Gravel left on the ground that would have otherwise filled the dam wall now lies covered in green moss, which glistens when it rains. Concrete structures built to support the dam lie prematurely abandoned, their plain magnificence preserved. Trails and footpaths, often imperceptible to the eye, cover the site, forming an accidental labyrinth. The tracks of those who wander through a contradictory landscape without any apparent motive. Brief markings of an aimless passage. Marginal itineraries.

Looking out over the valley on the trail, one might pose the question, “What is the Côa Valley like today?“ To characterise the current landscape, I would single out five elements.

Firstly, due to their singularity, antiquity and significance, the engravings remain the heart and soul of the area more than two decades after the dam‘s cancellation. The second element, undoubtedly, is the scar left on the riverbanks by the abandoned dam. Large expanses of earth were moved and today they stand as a testament of a battle lost. The third is the Pocinho Dam on the Douro River, whose reservoir, reaching almost as far as Penascosa, forced several groupings of engravings to be submerged under water in 1983. Previously ignored during the construction of the dam, this fact was revealed when the dam was subjected to periodic emptying. The fourth element is Quinta da Ervamoira (the former Quinta de Santa Maria), which had also been in danger of being submerged by the Côa dam reservoir. Today, the estate is laid out like a garden against the undulating hills.

The fifth element, though never referred to specifically during the controversy, has left a deep scar on the landscape. They are the Poio quarries, where schist and slate have been mined for decades. Initially, they were extracted to supply support structures for vineyards throughout the Douro valley. Now, however, metal or wood supports are used in the planting of new vines and in modern estates. Today, these quarries are invested in the industry of decorative stone for building construction. This extraction appears to have no end in sight. The scar created by the gouging of the earth grows ever larger in size. One group of engravings, on the Canada do Inferno site, is situated only a few hundred metres

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from the quarries. Upstream from the site, extending up to Quinta da Barca, are the most important ensembles of rock art, including Fariseu, Vale Figueira, Ribeira dos Piscos and Penascosa. Further upstream from the schist deposits, the valley widens and narrows into granite soils and it is here that we find other groups of rock art, particularly from the Metal Ages. For those who come across them, the Poio quarries can also seem like spaces of inquietude and mystery. Some of the inactive mines resemble the ruins of a city once inhabited by giants.

In recent decades, the surrounding geography has become increasingly complex.

The turbulent landscape at the end of the Côa River is a good example of a complicated play of tensions that has been difficult to resolve. The engravings marked the primal gesture of a lasting intervention on a “natural” site, a first step, a delicate design and the genesis of a fixing of time, form and reality on rocky surfaces. They are virtually the first record of a species that rose above all others to develop a world of reason, language and technology that had hitherto not existed. This set of engravings established a unique relationship with the valley that would have been destroyed had the dam been completed. They are one of the oldest known and most significant interventions made by Paleolithic Man on the planet. The Côa engravings cannot be directly compared to other graphic manifestations such as the paintings of Altamira, Lascaux or Chauvet, which were discovered in caves, having perhaps guarded secret rituals accessible only to local communities. The Côa engravings were, and are, a public “art“ that involved an entire territory, animating the valley and river itself and evoking the “spirit of a place“. Long before the emergence of cities, communities of hominids in the Neolithic lived on the move or settled temporarily in small, invariably precarious encampments, where they were subject to numerous variables such as climate, the availability of game or the proximity to other potentially hostile communities. Côa‘s prehistoric rock art enriches our understanding of a period in human evolution in which few examples of its calibre exist today. Its engravings also stimulate our imagination, giving us clues for unlocking the codes of a distant past. It is as if the valley represents the beginnings of a city that, while lacking in permanent buildings and roads, was imbued with a desire to permanently mark and inhabit a territory, to integrate it within a cosmicity that provided the first forays into an interpretation of life, of the mystery of death and an awareness of time passing.

The Côa Valley and its engravings could serve today as a starting point for a great journey where the great problems and challenges facing Portugal today and the management of the nation‘s territory might be encountered. Not far from here lie other majestic valleys, including those of the Sabor and Tua Rivers, and most notably the breathtaking indentation of the Douro, the backbone of a vast region that gradually unfolds unlike any other as one moves upstream. In a larger context, we are at the ancient heart of a movement to appropriate landscape that has left a mark on every period in history and continues to do so today. In the villages and cities of the interior, including Vila Nova de Foz Côa, solutions are now being sought to discourage out-migration through the construction of public buildings, sports complexes, convention centres and exhibition pavilions. Using con-

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pp. 87-92: A Phala 43 (algumas páginas | some pages ), 1995, Assírio & Alvim

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AGRADECIMENTOS | ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A Ana e a Emílio Mesquita pela cedência destas obras da sua colecção Thanks to Ana and Emílio Mesquita for the loan of these works from their collection

Este livro foi publicado por ocasião da exposição «Tributo às Gravuras do Vale do Rio Côa», organizada por Ana Pessoa Mesquita, realizada no Museu do Côa, em Vila Nova de Foz Côa, de 14 de Março a 28 de Setembro de 2019

This book was published on the occasion of the exhibition «Tribute to the Engravings of the Côa River Valley», organized by Ana Pessoa Mesquita, held at the Côa Museum, Vila Nova de Foz Côa from March 14 to September 28, 2019

© Museu do Côa, 2019 Rua do Museu, 5150-620 Vila Nova de Foz © Sistema Solar Crl (chancela Documenta) Rua Passos Manuel 67 B, 1150-258 Lisboa Fotografias | Photographs © Duarte Belo Imagens e textos | Plates and texts © os Autores ou Herdeiros dos Autores Março | March 2019 ISBN 978-989-8902-67-2 Fotografias das obras | Photographs of the works: António Jorge Silva Tradução | Translation: José António Oliveira Revisão | Proofreading: Helena Roldão Depósito legal | Legal deposit : 453215/19 Pré-impressão, impressão e acabamento | Prepress, printing and binding : Gráfica Maiadouro SA Rua Padre Luís Campos, 586 e 686 (Vermoim), 4471-909 Maia

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