Portugal’s showcase event for radical new music, SQUARE, has completed its lineup for next year’s event, which takes places across four cities in the country’s north from 29 January to 1 February.
Part of the Braga25 campaign celebrating Braga as the Portuguese Capital of Culture, it also takes place in Barcelos, Famalicão and Guimarães, and “aims to be a platform where national talent meets global perspectives, highlighting diversity, and fostering resilience and creativity by uniting small businesses and independent professionals in the music industry.”
Among the final names announced this week for the music lineup are Amsterdam disco-dub project Housepainters, Fidju Kitxora – based between Lisbon and Cape Verde and reimagining sounds from the African diaspora – and Canadian Lebanese multidisciplinary artist Liliane Chlela.
Portuguese representation comes from multi-disciplinarian George Silver and club pioneer NOIA, as well as Andalusia’s Rocío Guzmán, The Czech Republic’s SJU, Mozambican-Portuguese rapper EMMVR, and Normal Nada – selected for a showcase by Uganda’s Nyege Nyege collective.
As well as Nyege Nyege, the likes of Cafe OTO and COSMOS have nominated showcase artists, alongside results from a curated open call. For the full line-up, click here.
Earlier ths month, SQUARE also announced details of its accompanying conference programme. Day one is on the theme of ‘Geomusicality, Landscape and Accidentality’. The opening panel, Music Of The Coast explores the Atlantic as a creative catalyst, followed by Artistic Practice In Portuguese Rural Areas, chaired by tQ’s deputy editor Patrick Clarke. Cities And Creative Communities For Music: Idanha-a-Nova, Kampala, Mexico City will close the first day’s proceedings with three case studies of cities centred around music.
The second day concerns ‘Life On The Margin’, and opens with Geography As Catalyst, Geography As Limiting, moderated by The Wire’s April Claire Welsh. It is followed by The Margin Doesn’t Write History featuring a conversation between Kenyan artist and researcher Niokabi Kariuki and US writer Joshua Minsoo Kim. The final talk of that day is The Centre Cannot Hold: Redefining The Idea Of Success, exploring and challenging the traditional notions of success in the music industry and more.
The conference’s final day is titled ‘The Independent Artist’s Survival Guide. The first discussion will be Precarity Or Living As An Artist: Living Wage, Health Insurance, Unions. Music At the Centre of Cultural Policy, moderated by Portuguese music journalist Miguel Rocha. Community-Owned Venues And Other Ideas Of Horizontal Organisation In The Music Industry will then focus on alternative industry models, before the closing discussion People’s Assemblies: What is Missing, moderated by Portuguese musician Ricardo Baptista. This session will present the outcomes of popular assemblies held with artists from the four cities hosting SQUARE, reflecting on the collaborative process, sharing key insights and exploring what is still missing in the broader conversation.
For more information about this year’s line-up, full details about the conference, and tickets, click here.
