POLDRA – Public Sculpture Project Viseu promotes site-specific contemporary public art / art in public space. POLDRA seeks works that propose new interpretations of the sites and spaces as well as encourage interaction between the viewer and the sites themselves. Through this dynamic, the works of art aspire to initiate connections that exist beyond the primary act of looking.
Launched in 2018, POLDRA has enriched the city of Viseu with an open-air public art route within a historic, urban woods setting. Each annual edition grows a collection of long-term temporary interventions, maintained for periods of approximately two years, ensuring overlapping links between the new proposals and previous installations of each year, allowing for dialogue upon premise, sentiment, authorship and aesthetics.
Through an international open call with a significant focus on sculpture, POLDRA encourages proposals that both complement the existing collection as well as embody diverse views upon the public space(s) that are pre-selected for the project. Proposals submitted to this open call must be designed specifically for the Mata do Fontelo (Viseu, Portugal), and should reflect on the subject of art in public space and be, themselves, a reflection of the focus and oeuvre of the creator (individual or collective) responsible for the proposal.
The selected proposals will benefit from financial support of 3000 euros (taxes included) divided as follows: author’s fee (1500 euros); materials/production (1500 euros). To that value the organisers will add the costs regarding accommodation in Viseu (up to a 10-day period); and cover travel expenses to and from Viseu (up to 750 euros).
POLDRA’s 2021 edition will be inaugurated in October 2021 and the selected proposals must be installed and on site up to 5 days before the inauguration date (to be determined).
