Walk&Talk - Arts Festival takes place from 9 to 19 July and the new edition of the event, called “9.5”, will bring together artistic projects that are being specially programmed by the commonality of artists, curators and team involved in the organization, to think the creation, enjoyment and sustainability of artistic practices between the local or onsite - São Miguel in the Azores -, and the global sphere, through an online platform that will be the gateway to the festival.

In 2020, Walk & Talk will intersect online and onsite contexts, explore emerging platforms and new formats of artistic creation and presentation, to program a 9.5 edition that follows the current moment and incorporates the unavoidable impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the well-being of populations, social proximity and experience in public spaces. At the same time, the project aims to support the reinvention of the fruition mechanisms of the arts, to project positive socialization dynamics and to act to expand the experiences of contact with the communities.

“Walk&Talk will move between places, proposing new mappings and rehearsing alternative circuits of interaction and affection. It is a test of the way we continue to move ideas between places and audiences, and the first moment of a conversation about commonality that we will develop until the 10th edition of the festival, in our residency program and in the Knowledge Circuit activities”, describes Sofia Carolina Botelho, artistic co-director.

The 9.5 Edition does not replace the 10th edition of the Arts Festival, which will take place in July 2021, it does emerge as a new project based on collaboration, sharing and solidarity, practices that the organization intends to see strengthened in societies and, in particular, in the cultural sector.

“The concept of commonality will accompany, closely and at a distance, the artistic projects being created, propose new commissions and expand spaces for reflection and sharing. It will also translate into the curatorial exercise that has been developed in a horizontal logic of articulation with artists, curators, partners and team, collaborations that we prioritized in this edition, because as cultural agents it is our responsibility to act to mitigate the situations of professional vulnerability that have been accentuated by the pandemic ”, adds Jesse James, artistic co-director.

On July 9, the online platform will be inaugurated, which will be the gateway to Walk & Talk 2020. The design of this new festival programming space, in charge of the collective vivóeusébio, constitutes the first commission to be developed for the 9.5 edition. The platform will be accessible to the public through the website www.walktalkazores.org and until July 19th it will present projects, events and artistic activities, most of which are new and resulting from new commissions and proposals from the group of artists, curators, partners and team involved in the event.

The program will favor formats developed within the various circuits of the festival, such as music, dance and performance projects of the Performative Circuit; the cycle of thematic talks Talk About in podcast and the Summer School, both in the Knowledge Circuit. The 9.5 edition will also continue the Island Circuit that marks the genesis of the festival, with the presentation of installations, performances, screenings and distribution of mail art in various locations in São Miguel and, with the launch of “Radio 9.5”, broadcast on FM and online, it will bring the daily Walk&Talk program to the nine islands of the archipelago and the rest of the world. These projects will emerge from new artistic proposals, as well as from the translation or extension of the online program, and will be produced onsite by the Walk&Talk team, who will be meeting in the Azores during the event.

The contents of edition 9.5 will be presented at the premiere throughout the festival and will remain accessible to the public on the online platform after the event, constituting a timeless archive that will allow reflecting on artistic production at the current time and supporting the preparation of the 10th edition of Walk & Talk in 2020, which is expected to happen in a context of renewed collaboration and social proximity.