Creative Outputs
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Increase number of art pieces and municipalities engaged through art
Improving
Greater Côa Valley
Portugal
Problem: There is a lack of understanding and awareness of rewilding and its potential for benefits in the Greater Côa Valley among local communities and municipalities.
Action: Rewilding Portugal organised a festival with a diverse cultural programme connected to the landscape, to encourage visitors, stimulate the local economy, engage local communities and encourage a sense of pride in their environment. Before the festival, artists were invited to apply for residencies to work on art pieces in the landscape. The resulting artworks were then shown during the month-long festival in July 2023.
Indicator: To assess the impact of the land art festival, the number of applications to the artists residencies, the number of art pieces created for the festival and the number of visitors to the festival were counted. Additionally, the number of Wild Côa Network members and local providers benefiting from the festival, as well as the direct investment in the region by the festival, were assessed.
Methods
All applications for residencies and art works created for the Land Art festival were registered. The number of visitors and Wild Côa Network members participating in the festival were counted.
Once the festival was complete, the value of direct investment that it brought to the region was calculated, based on direct spend by the festival organisers (i.e. value that was directly managed and accounted for by Rewilding Portugal).
Questionnaires distributed to members of the Wild Côa Network were used to assess perceptions of the festival and its impacts.
Street artists performing at the land art festival. Photo: Rewilding Portugal.
Results
The baseline for all parts of this indicator was 0, as no similar festivals had previously been held in this landscape.
The call for residencies received a total of 318 applications. The residencies resulted in the creation of seven art pieces across six different municipalities (Sabugal, Almeida, Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo, Pinhel, Vila Nova de Foz Côa and Guarda).
8730 people attended the Land Art festival during July 2023.
Twenty one of the 40 local enterprises that were members of the Wild Côa network participated in the festival. When surveyed, more than 90% members of the Wild Coa Network agreed that “The existence of the CÔA – Corridor of Arts festival is positive for the development and dynamism of the Greater Côa Valley” (Fig. 1). More than a third of members (34%) felt a direct positive effect of the festival on their business. Benefits of the festival highlighted by members included direct sales of products, access to new audiences, increased accommodation bookings, emergence of new partnerships and increases in social media followers.
Figure 1: Responses to survey question, on a Likert scale from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5).
The total direct investment of the festival into the region across sectors was estimated as € 7961 (Fig. 2).
Figure 2: Financial return (EUR) reported by different business categories.
Interpretation
Before the festival, most municipalities in the Greater Côa Valley showed little interest in cooperating with Rewilding Portugal. The creation of seven pieces of art, using natural materials, in six different municipalities was very effective at improving relationships and communication between the rewilding team and local authorities.
The creation of these new art pieces has also helped to mark the landscape of the Greater Côa Valley for the future. They reflect an artistic expression of the natural world and the landscape that has always marked this region (e.g., Côa Valley rock engravings), but which has been lost over time. Through this recovered identity, pride in the landscape has grown among local communities. The art works have also increased the local, national and international visibility of the Greater Côa Valley rewilding project and catalysed new partnerships and relationships.
In addition, the Land Art festival demonstrated the potential of rewilding projects to bring benefits to local communities and economies. Although the indicator of economic benefits presented here only measured the direct spend by the festival organisers, the real value to the local economy will have been higher because nearly 9000 people visited the festival, eating in restaurants, staying in hotels and visiting shops. However, it was not possible to accurately assess these indirect benefits.
Performance during the land art festival. Photo: Rewilding Portugal.
Lessons learned
During the collection of data for this indicator, the scope of the indicator was broadened from focusing only on the creation of artworks to including an assessment of the impacts of the Land Art festival on members of the Wild Côa network and the local economy. These additional assessments aimed to give a fuller picture of the impact of the festival on the region.
Many lessons were learned in relation to the planning and delivery of the festival itself, which proved to be very intensive in terms of effort, costs and time by the organisers. In future, it would be simpler and more effective to focus similar festivals over a shorter time period and a specific part of the territory (rotating through different municipalities each time). Information about the most popular sessions will be used to plan future festival programmes.
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