2022
A VOLCANO'S LETTER TO THE WORLD
The theme for the celebration of the anniversary of the Capelinhos Volcano in 2022 was motivated by two events.
Firstly, the text "Letter from a volcano to the world" that the writer Judite Canha Fernandes wrote as part of her artistic residency on the island of Faial as part of the 9x9: Artists are islands - Islands are Artists program of Azores 2027 - Candidacy for European Capital of Culture. The writer spent 10 days in residence on the island of Faial, in December 2021, and based on many testimonies from the population and the viewing of local archives, she wrote a text that, metaphorically, is the voice of the volcano talking to the population, observing the lives of all of us during these 65 years. Now, based on the full text and with images by Gonçalo Tocha, filmed between 2017 and 2022, and images by Raquel Soeiro de Brito from 1957 and 1958, AvistaVulcão has created an audiovisual object, a unique video-letter.
LETTERS FROM OFÉLIA GARCIA DE FREITAS
In a second movement, we presented an unpublished and very particular archive of letters written in the year of the volcano, 1957, by a family from Faial.
This is the story of Ofélia Garcia de Freitas, a native of Horta, married to Antonio Dias Garcia. In September 1957, she was 37 years old and her husband left for the mainland, just before the eruption, due to health problems, staying in retreat in Luso. As soon as the volcano erupted, Ofélia Garcia de Freitas decided to write her husband a letter a day, reporting on the situation on the island and the volcano's developments. From this set of letters, together with the family, we selected the most representative of the volcanic phenomenon and of Faial society. It's a magnificent collection of letters, kindly provided by the family.
MEETING AND POPULAR EVENT
Casa da Missão once again opened its doors to the community to share family archives and take part in an extended conversation moderated by the writer Judite Canha Fernandes.
EXHIBITION CYCLE
At the end of the event, the "Letters from the Volcano" cycle continues at the Casa do Artesanato do Capelo, where the public can consult the Garcia family's letters written in 1957 and watch a video installation by Mar Navarro Llombart, based on the correspondence of photographer Hilda Rebelo in the year of the eruption, taken from her film "The Volcano Photographer".
