ESTAU | Estarreja Urban Art 2017

"The great schools of fine arts are the museums. I wanted one in every town and in every village for the people to rise in spiritual communion of the beauty.”, Egas Moniz (Nobel Prize in Medicine, 1949)

It is this quote from Egas Moniz that continued to inspire us during the 2nd EDITION of ESTAU, which challenged us to design and try to achieve similar results to the inaugural edition of 2016, which was no easy task.

With only one edition, ESTAU has become a strong and credible brand, not only nationally, but also internationally, certified by the festival community EFFE * (European Association of Festivals _ EFA), which highlighted this event as a "Innovative artistic proposal", becoming a "landmark in Urban Art in terms of its strong internationalization and interface with various artistic languages". The experts also highlighted "the high-quality interventions, the good educational program and the careful approach to the local community".

In this short paragraph, we can summarize the goals that we have pursued since the first moment in which we designed each of the actions we propose for ESTAU and in this second edition, with more than 40 activities, promoted by more than 50 artists from different art backgrounds, have again shown this programmatic obsession.

Whether they are painting of murals, building installations, workshops, movie screenings, guided tours, music concerts, performance shows, etc .; all of them intend to put Urban Art in dialogue with the city, with people, with heritage, with nature and with the other arts, articulating all the actors, equipment and entities, material and immaterial that make up a territory in its everything, crossing all this with other scales, with other 'invited' realities.

In this 2nd edition, it was impossible to deny that the streets of Estarreja have gained more life, more color and new ways of telling, learning and feeling their own history, because each wall tells a story and inspire those who pass by.

* ESTAU was distinguished with the EFFE label, facilitated by the European Festivals Association (EFA), which consists of festivals that stand for artistic quality and have a significant impact on the local, national and international level. Feedback from the International Jury and Hub Experts: "It is considered an innovative artistic proposal specifically designed for a small-town with non-established artistic scene. It is a very recent festival but already a landmark in urban art in terms of its strong internationalization and interface with several artistic languages. Experts underlines the high standard interventions, the good educational program and the thoughtful approach to local community. Following the emergence of similar events throughout the country, a strong and distinctive identity is demanded."
** activity integrated in the program of Mostruário | uma espécie de feira (in english, something like: Showcase | a kind of fair), that takes place at municipal library.