Tirar da corda

Vide (As Neves, Pontevedra)
September-October 2023

The project "Tirar da corda" was carried out in collaboration with Javier Fernández Pérez de Lis for Mulleres Extramuros 2023 (Pontevedra Provincial Council) and curated by Paula Cabaleiro. The project's focus was on addressing the border reality of Vide (As Neves, Pontevedra). The strong physical presence of the river is constructed as a border (A raia húmida), but a permeable border that, far from separating, unites the two banks of the river in a common history.

The two border realities reflect each other as if in a mirror, in the same way that the Pesqueiras (stone structures in the river made for fishing lamprey) are erected symmetrically, almost like bridges. This common history of the river speaks to the changes of recent decades. Changes that have to do with very local experiences, but that reflect global trends: the post-war era of the Black Market, Portuguese and Spanish emigration, the exchange of goods and how the independence of the Portuguese colonies changed the economic realities of both banks, hydrographic policies and the common struggles against the dam, the desire for physical bridges of union... and there the river remains, recounting all these stories. The Miño, a fluid witness to a relationship founded on a collaboration to "saír adiante (go forward)."

In "Tirar da corda," the long years of exchange between Galicia and Portugal are reinterpreted by recovering one of the methods used for this purpose. After a research phase, an action was carried out consisting of throwing a rope from one side of the river to the other with the help of a rocket. This method was one of those used for the exchange, although not the most common. The launch took place at one of the locations where the exchanges used to happen, a fishing plot in the "estreito" (strait). The action also involved a collective descent into the river, a route that has long since ceased to be common. In the original project, the rope was to be created collaboratively with plant materials from the area. Conversations with neighbors would take place while the rope was being woven. Due to the final conditions of the production process, this phase of work had to be eliminated.