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- Local Heritage in Contemporary Times: Artistic Creation and the Intangibilities of PlacePublication . Carvalho, Claudia Pato; Sol, Hermínia; Saraiva, Ana; Rosa, Sandra; Fino, DéboraThis article shares collaborative scientific work done by researchers from the Centre for Social Studies (University of Coimbra, Portugal) and from the Technology, Restoration and Arts Enhancement Center (Polytechnical Institute of Tomar, Portugal) within the REDE ARTÉRIA in cooperation with MOVTOUR. REDE ARTÉRIA is an action research project that aims to create cultural presentations and performances to tour the Centro Region of Portugal. It aspires to encourage a greater professionalization of agents, while aiming to enrich and enhance the cultural offering. Simultaneously, it intends to stimulate a community practice of participatory cultural mapping influencing creation processes and cultural policies in this region. The analysis is made in the specific context of the artistic creation VAGAR, conceived by the Portuguese choreographer Marina Nabais and co-produced by the Municipality of Ourém (Portugal). The analysis results from participatory workshops with local agents, field notes from rehearsal observation, interviews with artists, local participants, local government, and from the final report produced by the dance association responsible for the performance. This work critically reflects on how processes of community participation and of tangible and intangible resource mapping – by providing dialogue opportunities between artists, local agents, municipalities and the local cultural fabric – can develop innovative projects of artistic intervention that link heritage to local, social and cultural civic dynamics. It thus epitomizes the importance of the social dimension of cultural activity.
- Selectivity of memories of WWII in portugal: the role of leisure, education, the arts and the mediaPublication . Sol, Hermínia; de Brito, Marisa P.Even though more than seventy-five years have passed since the end of WWII, its prominence in entertainment media productions along with the global emergence of memorial markers have contributed to its omnipresence in people’s minds. Nevertheless, the perception of this historical event is still far from reaching consensus as nations tend to interpret and remember episodes in accordance with their perspective, thus adding up to the complexity of WWII and of Holocaust memories. With this in mind, this article describes the idiosyncrasies of Portugal’s recent tribute and remembrance strategies for the victims of WWII. The country’s neutral status, along with a set of cultural and historical specifics, has led to the dissemination of tropes leading to the idea of Portugal as an inherently tolerant and mild-mannered nation. A perception that is often fostered by resorting to monuments, museums, tourism and leisure activities. Despite evidence provided, mostly, by recent academic studies and documentary films, these tropes continue to fuel Portuguese popular imagination and are still prevalent in some recently established WWII memory places.
- Activating Templar Heritage: Tourism, Narrative Strategies and Information TechnologiesPublication . Marques, C. G.; Sol, Hermínia; Pedro, João P.; Mateus, Lígia; Pestana, Hélder; Pinto Coelho, João; Silva, ManuelaWhile fairly established in several western countries, military tourism is still in a grey area in Portugal. In order to bolster the notion that this concept can be a major contributor to tourism activation, an Information System is being developed with the Templar Order as basis. This project is a direct result of the work of the Polytechnic Institute of Tomar (Portugal), the Templars Route European Federation and Tomar’s local government. It uses the Rapid Application Development methodology and resorts mostly to a client-server web application, using web standards such as HTML, CSS and JS, and it’s operated by the PHP program language and SGBD Mysql for data persistence. The IS fills a void as far as military tourism heritage platforms are concerned. It’s user friendly design and architecture make for a pleasant research experience while the inclusion of more updated and historical narratives along with storytelling strategies increase its appeal among a non-academic audience. The recent COVID-19 outbreak brought about the need to adapt the original model to an ever-increasing virtual culture trend.
- Dome and Away: Logan's Run Post-Apocalyptic CityscapesPublication . Sol, HermíniaThe rapid growth of population has been a global concern for quite some time due to its severe environmental, poverty control and social instability implications. A concern that becomes even more acute if one is to accept the United Nations’ Population Division latest predictions that by 2050, more than two-thirds of the world’s population is to live in cities (United Nations 1). Despite not being new, the concept of smart city has, in recent years, acquired privileged status amongst city planners and imagineers all over the world due to the belief that its focus on innovation, technology, ecology and people’s well-being can contribute to a more sustainable urban paradigm (Cowley; Dameri; Lindner). Mostly, smart cities are fast becoming a tangible representation of the futuristic cityscapes which were, till recently, confined to science fiction literature and cinema. Thus, it is no wonder that these tend to be regarded as a sort of dream-come-true project with a strong emphasis on the notion that the products and mechanism generated therein will ultimately “ensure the ‘good life’” (Foley et. al. 84). Whether this premise is a hundred percent valid it remains to be seen as smart-city initiatives are still being put to the test. Yet, the dangerous implications of present-day societies’ blind faith and dependence on technology have been persistently tackled in science fiction texts since the 1950s. A fine example of one such text is Michael Anderson’s film Logan’s Run (1976), a dystopian account of the pleasures and perils of the inhabitants of a computer controlled domed city in a post-apocalyptic future scenario. As defended by several researchers (Bina et al.; Foley et. al.), science fiction’s speculative spectrum regarding architecture and urban planning is particularly relevant as it provides “alternative insights into what challenges lie ahead,” both in terms of “future ‘possibilities’ and ‘warning signals’” (Bina et. al. 167). Consequently, both material and imaginary cityscapes “mingle and resonate together in complex and unpredictable ways” (Graham 395) since they influence each other. Bearing all this in mind, this article will first consider science fiction’s impact in the conception of the city of the future. While doing so, it will also consider how the notion of city of the future often carries utopian overtones, only to see them degenerate into dystopian scenarios. Subsequently, it will examine the different architectural styles present in Logan’s Run and their intended symbolism. Lastly, it will look into some warning signs regarding the environmental and personal privacy challenges that come with living in a smart city.
- Em meses de inverneira, histórias à lareira : Provérbios e dizeres enquanto transmissores de valores culturais e de identidade.Publication . Sol, HermíniaA tradição oral, enquanto objecto passível de ser teorizado e analisado cientificamente, ocupa ainda um espaço muito limitado no meio académico. Numa tentativa de romper com este estado de coisas, este artigo pretende reflectir sobre o papel que os provérbios e dizeres têm na perpetuação de certos valores culturais e nacionais. Para tal irá abordar a natureza didáctica destes dois fenómenos comunicacionais enquanto compromisso com as culturas de onde emergem. À luz do trabalho de Durkheim e de Vansina, irá explorar de que forma é que este género de produções anónimas contribui para a criação e manutenção da memória colectiva de uma dada comunidade. Traçará, também, alguns paralelos entre provérbios nacionais e seus congéneres europeus, no sentido de demonstrar que estes terão servido de veículo para o intercâmbio de ideias. Por último, fará menção a alguns projectos em curso que visam instigar a preservação e transmissão de aspectos do passado através da tradição oral.
- Dodging Nostalgia: filming and dealing with facts in industrial heritage sitesPublication . Sol, Hermínia; Luz, JoãoDocumentary film is commonly seen and defined has a genre with social engagement ambitions. In fact, many directors and critics view it as a form of social history by giving central roles to individuals or communities that tend to be rendered invisible or voiceless by mainstream media. This perspective gains relevance when one considers films which deal with labour relations in manufacturing plants which, often, expose forms of psychological violence inflicted by those in power positions towards the underprivileged. Filmmakers such as Luc Decaster, Michael Moore as well as Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, to mention but a few, have all worked on film narratives that explore the process of deindustrialization in their countries of origin. While exposing the complexity and disturbing effects of the dismantling of an industrial order, the adopted stance is one that refuses to glorify the outgoing paradigm. Inspired by the work of the aforementioned directors, the authors of this paper have ceased the opportunity to work on a film about the extinction of a paper producing industrial node in Tomar (Portugal) and on the repercussions for the region. During the course of filming, however, they felt the need to produce a theoretical reflection on the negotiating process adopted to reach a balance between the perspectives of elements of former managerial and technical staff. With that in mind, this proposal aims at sharing their musings as well as the difficulties found during the research and shooting periods to distance themselves from an industrial sublime nostalgic narrative that effaces the complexity of class conflicts, along with the violence of manually assembled work, by focusing on the grandeur of the buildings and of the machinery. Special emphasis will be placed on the difficulties of dodging a nostalgic industrial sublime narrative. Firstly, because this narrative is still very much ingrained in a prevailing industrial heritage protection discursive trend and, secondly, because it was a narrative shared by white and blue collar-workers alike. Hence, the sanitizing and violent features of the dominant nostalgic discourse will be analyzed by resorting to a work still in progress.
- A statistical contribution on film tourism. A case studyPublication . Sol, Hermínia; Grilo, Luis Miguel; Pinto Coelho, JoãoThe evaluation of the impact that the images perceived by the spectators have in the destination choices they make as tourists is a growing research field, not only in Tourism and Marketing Management but also among the Behavioural Sciences. Based on a questionnaire previously developed on a Film Tourism sub-project, with qualitative variables in nominal and ordinal scale, a survey was conducted during a number of film screenings hosted by Tomar’s (a medium-sized city in Portugal) Film Society. After the characterization of the random sample with the sociodemographic variables, the nonparametric test Pearson chi-square was applied to test the null hypothesis of independence between the variable “Gender” and the variables “Have you ever visited a place by influence of a film?” or “Destination-dream by strong influence of a film”. Given that the null hypothesis is not rejected, there is no statistical evidence to consider a dependence/relationship between these variables. Other finding is statistically significant Spearman correlations between some variables, such as “Education level” and “The average number of activities of Film Tourism”.
- Rooting a new event in its place: the case of Festa Templária, Tomar, PortugalPublication . Sol, Hermínia; de Brito, Marisa P.; Pinto Coelho, João; Figueira, Luís; Pratt, Christopher; Lopes, Eunice R.Purpose With fierce competition in capturing tourists, it is crucial that destinations be prepared to adapt and to refresh their event portfolio. The purpose of this paper is to look into the decision-making process that led to the development of a new festival in a middle-sized city, Tomar, in Portugal. Design/methodology/approach This study analyses the creation process of the Knights Templar Festival, in Tomar, a new event focusing on the Templar history of the city. A retrospective outlook on the evolution of the event is given. Primary data were collected via quantitative survey analysis and semi-structured interviews. The theoretical scope is events and placemaking. Findings The strengths and weaknesses of the region influenced the conception and setting up of this particular event. This awareness is important for cities in meeting the challenges and opportunities that event portfolio diversification calls for. Research limitations/implications This paper helps us to understand the motives and challenges in establishing a new event in the city, through the analysis of a single case study of a European middle-sized city. Simultaneously, it is a longitudinal in-depth case of the first editions of a new historically focused event. Practical implications Several practical implications can be derived to the case of Tomar. Overall, it is key that cities align the focus of new events with the city’s identity (as Tomar did). Originality/value This paper presents an in-depth and longitudinal case study, from the moment of the creation of a new event to its fourth edition, mapping the decision-making process, highlighting the learning curve of the decision makers.