Amulets for magical beings inhabiting gardens

What can we uncover in these gardens full of life, visible or invisible?

How can we inhabit them, without them ceasing to dazzle us, without damaging or transforming them? In groups, we’ll build amulets for magical beings.

Do you ever feel them lurking around? During the day they hide while we’re out walking, but at night, in the silence, they come to check that we’ve protected their place while they were resting.

With the art of protecting, you twist a string three times, hug the tree and hang it up, saying the magic words: “this is your place too, and we’re going to care for it”. With leaves, twigs, branches, stones, sticks, earth, clay, water and natural pigments, we put together a secret binder. What will it be?

And tomorrow, will the magical beings that inhabit the gardens return?

Will you come along?

Oficina Sibila is an art education project rooted in contemporary art, with a studio in Maia, near Porto. A place where generations meet, Sibila’s aim is to extend the research field of Joana Mendonça – teacher, educator and artist – to the community where she lives, through partnerships with other educators, artists or craftspeople, and where a collective path is built. Oficina Sibila believes that contemporary art provides answers to today’s greatest conflicts and dilemmas and its actions demystify the artistic aura that distances art from those who really want it.