- In its fifth edition in the Valencian Community, DAR has worked with nine women artists from the Mancomunidades of Maestrat and Els Ports
- The collaborative drafts were presented during a meeting at the Centre del Carme
Valencia (26.02.2024). The Consorci de Museus of the Valencian Community has presented the results of the seventh edition – and fifth in the Valencian Community – of the DAR Project (Dones Artistes Rurals), an initiative born with the support of CMCV and funded by it, that works with rural women artists to boost their personal and professional development through training for their professionalization, promoting their artistic production, generating collaborative projects, and fostering the creation of artistic collectives.
The presentation, held yesterday at the Centre del Carme, was attended by the manager of the Consorci de Museus, Nicolás Bugeda; the project director, Clara Albacete; and the nine artists who have been part of this latest edition, who presented the collaborative drafts they worked on together.
In each of its editions in the Valencian Community, the program focuses on a different territory, supported by the different mancomunidades.
The latest edition of the project in the Valencian Community was developed in the Mancomunidades of Maestrat and Els Ports, with the participation of artists Piluka Diago, Laia Gombau, Raquel MendozaArt, Anne Barton de Mayor, Janavi, Gabriela Rivera Lucero, Mireia Àvila, Tawny Blume, and Mar Navarro Llombart.
The three collaborative drafts presented were ‘Art Castelló’, an online platform for artists, cultural agents, and people interested in the world of art that functions as a cultural agenda for Els Ports, Alt, and Baix Maestrat; ‘L’alquímia del plàstic’, a collaborative and citizen participation artistic proposal aimed at raising awareness about the vast amount of domestic waste we generate daily; and ‘Teixint memòries, recreant identitats’, an audiovisual project of citizen participation and context-based art that gives voice to a portion of the population of Els Ports and Maestrat made up of older women.
“At the Consorci de Museus, we promote the DAR Project with the goal of providing support, guidance, and visibility to women living in rural areas, who for this reason face more challenges in developing their work. With this initiative, which has already had five editions in the Valencian Community, we are unifying the territory through artistic creation,” says Vicente Samper, acting artistic director of the Consorci de Museus.
A Recognized Project
Since its creation in 2020 and subsequent launch in 2021, the DAR project has received several recognitions, including Best Project in 2022 from AVVAC, Visual Artists of Valencia, Alicante, and Castellón, or inclusion in the list of the La Fábrica Observatory of the best rural culture projects in 2022 and 2023. The initiative is also part of the cultural and rurality best practices maps of the Ministry of Culture and the Red Rural Nacional, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food.
The first edition of DAR worked with a dozen artists from the Mancomunidad La Serranía, in the province of Valencia. In 2022, two new editions were launched incorporating two mancomunidades from the provinces of Alicante and Castellón, those of L’Alcoià and El Comtat, and Alto Palancia, respectively. In 2023, the project held two editions in the Valencian Community, working with creators from the Mancomunidad of La Vall d’Albaida, in the province of Valencia, and from the Mancomunidades of Maestrat and Els Ports, in the province of Castellón.
At the same time, the project has expanded its area of action to two other territories, such as Catalonia, in Conca de Barberà and Terres de l’Ebre, through Next Generation EU funds and the Diputació de Tarragona, or Castilla-La Mancha, where from this year until 2026, it also expands its work, standing out as a cultural accelerator with Next Generation EU funds.
Fotos: @juanrpeiro
