Westway LAB: the ecology of co-Creation

From legacy and diversity – two basic premises that are fundamental for the cultural value chains, social and economic – Westway LAB has developed a course of innovation and integration of uniquely different voices in the music sector and society in general.

Offering more than the standard designs and categorisations, Westway LAB anticipated a configuration of coexistence that is vital to human beings, built from plurality and experimentation, based on the conviction that artistic creation, knowledge sharing and sensorial experience is the present and future path of humanity.

Arriving at its 9th edition, we have been able to process and fine-tune many of the experiences undertaken along the way, so as to adjust the open, evolution-based model we adopted for the event. And so we continue.

Westway LAB proposes a complex ecosystem built on simplicity: to live by the music, in a Cultural Heritage landmark city that was European Capital of Culture in 2012, immersed in a process of fruition of different cultures and realities that potentiate the human imagination from artistic creation to the circulation of knowledge.

This process of empowerment generates meaningful, empathic and economic value between artists, professionals and the public in general, unleashing the free flow of knowledge transferred between generations and in chain, making possible a truly transversal social evolution.

For this year, as a concrete action that is part of this philosophy that Westway LAB has adopted since its foundation in 2014, we present 6 co-creation projects that cross artists from Portugal and the European continent. As always, the resulting showcases are free entry concerts so that these unique moments – where new material is performed live for the very first time – benefit from total accessibility.

Also in the domain of the PRO Conferences, this year’s program takes a special look into key areas of the music sector and once again promises prominent speakers from the national and international music industry scenes, whose professional experience and life experience enriches the panels and keynotes.

The Festival will feature over 20 concerts distributed by 3 stages of the Centro Cultural Vila Flor plus another 5 stages throughout the city, enabling for the circulation of the public around the urban centre, looking for new (musical) revelations.

This 9th edition accentuates the power of creation as a strategic direction of the event, and places artists – of every generation – on the frontline. Names will be announced soon and will reveal first rank names from historic Portuguese artists as well as the Next Generation that is now tasked with continuing to write the musical history of our times.

Westway LAB is also a major platform enabling the Portuguese music industry to work in a networked way, partnering with organisations such as AMAEI, GDA, WHY Portugal, ESNS Exchange, Antena 3, Keychange and MERLIN, helping raise new horizons and find creative solutions in challenging uncertain times.

For all this and more, Guimarães is an obligatory destination where you must slow down for 4 Spring days, when it turns into a City of Music which in turn enriches the patrimonial and gastronomical heritage that are part and parcel of the city’s unique cultural treasures.

Rui Torrinha