The first edition of the Walk&Talk Biennial will take place between September 25 and November 30, 2025 and under the motto Gestures of abundanceannounced Jesse James, artistic director, this Friday at the press presentation. El Observador had already reported in April that Walk&Talk, the Azorean arts festival held annually on the island of São Miguel, would give way to a biennial.
Experimental and participatory in nature, the festival that transformed São Miguel into an open-air museum, with artistic interventions in public spaces and programming that was almost completely accessible and free of charge, had long been showing the winds of change, starting with the decision Expand artistic activities and residency programming throughout the year. After the last edition, in 2022, two years of deep reflection followed. “How do we want this to grow? How will Walk&Talk continue over the next 10 or 20 years?” recalls Jesse James, who in 2011 founded the multidisciplinary festival that redefined the Azores art scene, accompanied by events such as the Tremor festival or institutions such as Arquipélago.
The answer came: a “less rapid and extractive” event, with “time” and interacting with other cultural structures in the region. There is also a change in the agenda: the traditional ten days in July give way to two months in autumn, in a decision celebrated by Sofía Ribeiro, regional secretary of Education, Culture and Sports. The move of the event to “a low season for tourism” contributes to “a year-round cultural calendar” on the island, according to the representative of the Government of the Azores (PSD/CDS-PP/PPM coalition).
Under the motto Gestures of abundanceThe biennial is guided by the idea that the archipelago is not a peripheral territory or one of scarcity, but rather a territory where what exists (and, perhaps, even in abundance) deserves to be discovered, the organization highlighted this Friday. “It stops being a festival just about partying and having a good time. That’s what the biennial is, yes, but it’s also about going deeper. maybe it’s not like that ostentatiousbut that’s what interests us,” admits James, who does not hide his desire to “reach more people.”
“Participation does not have to happen simply by going to an exhibition, it can be in the context of a class held at the university. It is not just about bringing people to the biennial, but also about understanding how the biennial finds them,” says the artistic director and curator. An example of this expressed desire is the collaboration with the University of the Azores, an institution where, in 2024, there will be no artistic careers. The strengthening of links between the biennial and academia occurs through associated research centers “linked to biology, ecology, ocean preservation, and the study of algae and fungi.”
It is an aspect that, for example, the festival did not find time or space to explore. “We didn’t have time to understand what was happening. [no território]. An event like a festival is fast, it has a different rhythm. Nothing against this rhythm that probably exists in other projects, but for us it no longer makes sense. What the biennial can contribute to is create a place for discussion, a center and a conversation that does not exist in the autonomous bubble of the art world.”
Precisely to get out of the bubble, the Assemblies of Abundance were created, meetings between people from different areas of society (from artists to farmers)—and, therefore, abundant in perspectives and knowledge—to debate issues and dream about the territory of Saint Michael. The first took place in February and the second last weekend.
As for the program itself, little was raised this Friday, at the beginning of the biennial Walk&Talk, curated in this first edition by curators Claire Shea (Toronto), Fatima Bintou Rassoul Sy (Dalar) and Liliana Coutinho (Lisbon), who They have been paving the way in São Miguel for several months, trying to get to know the artistic fabric.
Among the first names to present new commissions for 2025 are artists such as Alice Visentin, ANDLab, Candice Lin, Colectiva MALVA, Ebun Sodipo, Helle Siljeholm, Gala Porras-Kim, Janilda Bartolomeu, Joana Sá, Lucy Bleach, Mae-Ling Lokko, Maria Emanuel Albergaria, Meg Stuart & Forum Dança, Nadia Belerique, Resolve Collective, Uhura Bqueer and Soya Cow. Some of them “were already trying to work in the Azores,” says Jesse James. Co-productions with companies such as Hotel Europa and Os Possessos also stand out, real events on an island (and in an archipelago) where there is no professional theater structure.
Other artists will be confirmed in the coming months as they will be released at the end of November. open calls for two scholarships, the organization revealed this Friday. This is a scholarship for artistic creation and residency and another for programming, the latter only for agents based on the island of São Miguel, a particular characteristic that will allow “founding the relationship with the territory,” the organization emphasizes.
The first Walk&Talk Biennial will last two months and the program will cover several spaces in the city of Ponta Delgada and the island of São Miguel, in particular the University of the Azores, where the press presentation took place, or the Archipelago — Contemporary Art Center, but also other museums, galleries, independent and public spaces on the island.
The Walk&Talk festival, organized by the Anda&Fala cultural association, had its first edition in 2011, in the city of Ponta Delgada. From then on, the event was held annually in the month of July, consolidating itself as a multidisciplinary festival with space for experimentation, but with limited growth, since they could only obtain financing from the Regional Government and the Chamber, preventing them from competing for funds. of the DGArtes for a law that dictated that cultural associations based in the Azores and Madeira could not request national support.
It was in 2017 when the Anda&Fala association managed to meet with Miguel Honrado, then Secretary of State for Culture, “to change the law,” remembers Jesse James. They claimed that it was discriminatory (because the opposite could happen, i.e. a structure based on the mainland could compete for the support of the regional directorate of culture of the Azores and Madeira) and the document was corrected to allow Madeirans and Azoreans structures They could compete for the DGArtes. “This protocol was signed at Walk&Talk,” boasts Jesse James. The following year, in 2018, they already requested support from the DGARtes. “For us it changed the paradigm completely. From there we began to have sustained financing.”
The professionalization process of the association was consolidated. “DGartes gave us that. “Then it grew.” Until the last edition, in 2022, and the respective break that is now coming to an end. Meanwhile, in 2020, the cultural association founded the place, a space that, in addition to being the headquarters of the association, has been dedicated to offering important cultural programming from the Azorean artistic scene.
The Observer traveled to São Miguel, Azores, at the invitation of Walk&Talk.
Source: Observadora
