The exhibition, which opened on Thursday, March 13, at El Viejo Cárcel, is organized by AECT Duero-Douro, the Municipal Chamber of Torre de Moncorvo, the Iberian Mask Academy, and the Anthropology Department of the University of Santiago de Compostela.
After its tour through Zamora, Salamanca, Torre de Moncorvo (Portugal), Valladolid (at the University of Valladolid), Cáceres, and Alfândega da Fé (Portugal), the exhibition "Rites and Winter Rituals" arrives this Thursday, March 13, at 7:00 p.m. at the sociocultural center El Viejo Cárcel in Lugo. The Social and Cultural Anthropology Department of the University of Santiago de Compostela, in collaboration with AECT Duero-Douro, the Municipal Chamber of Torre de Moncorvo, and the Iberian Mask Academy, is responsible for organizing this exhibition, which can be visited free of charge until May 15.
Under the section “Unveiling the Work and Art of Masks”, Professor Pilar Panero García, director of the Chair of Studies on Tradition at the University of Valladolid and the European project MASKS, and Professor Elena Freire Paz from the Anthropology Department of the Faculty of Humanities at the Lugo Campus of USC, participated in the inauguration ceremony before the authorities and the press. Professor António Tiza from the Iberian Academy of the Mask then explained the content that the public can visit.
The exhibition presents a collection of eighty-three tramontana masks crafted by twenty-six different artisans. Some of these artisans are collaborators of MASKS (Amável Antão, Isidro Rodrigues, Óscar Barros, and Octávio Marrão), and the collection also includes masks by Alex Rodrigues and Roberto Afonso, who are members of the project as partners.
The masks in this private collection, curated by Nuno Jorge Rodrigues Gonçalves, are associated with thirty-four ancient rituals of the traditional Entroido. These masks originate from parishes and towns in the Bragança District of Portugal, a region that preserves a vast cultural heritage with archaic roots, yet remains alive due to its strong social acceptance today.
Photo: Marta Veiga Izaguirre
To ensure the public has all the information at hand, a catalog with texts by Professor António Tiza, a prominent member of MASKS, has been created and is available for free download:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WWc8aIr2YWF0YHIvMgJeqjqQ01x18y7k/view?usp=sharing
