DPIc: About
ABOUT
DPic: Arquitetura, Arte e Imagem
A B O U T P A S T E N T R I E S C A L L S
EN / PT
Neste momento, estamos na segunda edição do concurso Internacional de Desenho e Fotografia (DPIc) direcionado para o Espaço e Identidade das Universidades e é aberto a toda a comunidade académica.
O tema nuclear do concurso é a ideia de Utopia e de Espaços Visuais de Mudança (VSC), tendo como enfoque os espaços e identidade das Universidades. Esta segunda edição conta com a participação da Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) e da Chalmers University of Technology (CUT) que se unem a este concurso através da rede internacional para difusão e fortalecimento da investigação, AAi2 Lab+ articulada com o projeto Visual Spaces of Change (VSC). O concurso é organizado pelo grupo de investigação AAI (FAUP) integrado no centro de I&D da FAUP (CEAU) e a AEFAUP, em parceria com as Associações de Estudantes de todas as outras Faculdades da U. Porto, sendo promotores o consórcio do projeto de investigação VSC, conjuntamente com o projeto AAi2 Lab, contando com o apoio institucional da Reitoria da U. Porto e da FAUP.
A coordenação do concurso é da responsabilidade do Centro de Arquitectura e Urbanismo da Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto (CEAU/FAUP) através do seu grupo de investigação AAI e o Centre for English, Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto (CETAPS/FLUP).
Interview with Anna Brody
INTERVIEW WITH ANNA BRODY
“So Far, I think
/
I Was Something That Lay Under The Sun And Felt It“
SCOPIO sat down to talk with Anna Brody about her most recent work, “So Far, I think / I Was Something That Lay Under The Sun And Felt It”. Brody, currently based in Tucson, Arizona, works with photography to both supplement and circumvent the shortcomings of written word. With this project, she photographs people, places and moments who are waiting to become. She hopes to honor them, and crystallize the quiet accomplishment of just being, now.
“I capture so that I can ask them, how did you become this way? Where will you go from here? Do you feel free? Do you know how beautiful you are? I experience a swelling awe at the glowing beauty of what I’m seeing; a compulsive need to capture and save these incredibly ordinary moments for posterity, web-weaving, and in fear of them slipping away from my memory.”
”So Far, I think / I Was Something That Lay Under The Sun And Felt It” is your most recent project, for how long have you been working on it?
For almost exactly a year now – I finished undergrad in November of 2017, quit a job for good reasons, broke my own heart a couple of times, grew it back together again by making new friends and seeing old friends, traveled a bit, drove myself across the country to my new home in Tucson, and started graduate school here in Arizona. It’s been a very full year!
Tell us more about this feeling of being scared of being alone, which is key to your work. What does that mean to you, and what does it feel like?
It’s not so much afraid of being alone as it is of being lonely – being lonely in crowds or around other people has to do with not feeling seen. How another person—a lover, partner, soul mate friend—can hold your non-performative, authentic self and remind you of who that is, and anchor you in that even while you’re performing in public. I think that’s why I often feel lonely in public; I realize I’m performing and I’m not being authentic, and don’t have that anchor to reference back to. Intuition is what I use when I photograph, and what anchors me to my authentic self because I can’t perform intuition, and in that sense my work acts as a partner or friend would – these images hold evidence of my authentic self, and serve to remind me of what that looks like, and to trust myself, that my intuition is worth something. To feel seen and understood is to share your perspective on the world with someone else and to have them get it, and collecting intuitively captured pictures shows myself back to me. It mirrors my own perspective back to me because I don’t agonize over it in the moment, I’m not trying to explain it at the time I just do it, and then afterwards I see myself more clearly and I think it represents my best self in a certain way? My most open, least cynical self. And sharing that with myself makes me my own anchor. That sounds super sad on paper, but it’s true – it’s a process of intuition, understanding, and affirmation in and of myself. And hopefully, for a handful of other people who connect to my work in a non-logical, holistic and wholly authentic way.
You say you photographed to ‘circumvent and supplement the failures of our written word to express the complex’. What do you mean by that? Could you tell us a bit about your relationship with the medium of photography? When and how did it start?
Rebecca Solnit is an author and theorist who has changed the way I see the world. In one of her best-known books, Men Explain Things to Me, she states: “The tyranny of the quantifiable is partly the failure of language and discourse to describe more complex, subtle, and fluid phenomena, as well as the failure of those who shape opinions and make decisions to understand and value these slipperier things.” I believe photography—and art of any medium—can work around these shortcomings of language and discourse by allowing for imagery to represent, relate, and describe some of the many things that fall outside of what can be quantified or described with words. In doing so, art allows for meaning and value to be recognized in things that might otherwise be deemed unimportant because of their ineffable nature. In photographing the quiet unspectacular nonevents of just being, now, I can elevate and crystallize what would otherwise not be considered notable (literally, that you cannot make note of it because there aren’t the words to do so). In our culture, if you are not productive you are not valuable, and therefore not notable. Productivity is measured by the accomplishments of progress as recognized by colonial institutions that sanction the pursuit of capital above human life, joy, and freedom (especially, in the US, above the lives, joy and freedom of people of color, trans people, people with disabilities, and many other individuals who are deemed expendable in the face of the almighty dollar.) Systems of power need to quantify and categorize in order to maintain control. White supremacy, for example, requires among other things the quantification of melanin in order to construct the social (not biological) categories of race and/or ethnicity in order to maintain control over certain categories with certain ostensibly quantifiable traits. I and many other artists hope to subvert that which makes this control enactable – that which makes it so that a claim to power can be carried out with any sense of justifiable right. Question the claims by which a structure is imposed and leave it up to the viewer to bring their own vision of truth and connectivity to the work and to the world. Art, in all its subjectivity, can honor the personal history, life experience, and perspective of the viewer, and assert that they are equally as authoritative and meaningful as the intentions of the artist or what is understood culturally as truth. My working mission is that authoritative praise for quantifiable achievement should not be a precondition to appreciation; to see the ordinary and unotable as extraordinary—that is love, and that is what I aim to express and affirm.
Who are these people you photographed? How did you approach them to be involved in your documentary project? Where was the balance between privacy and exposure?
They are a mix of friends, family, and complete strangers. I approach with honesty about my intentions, and personal vulnerability that ideally allows for the subject to feel comfortable letting down some of their own walls to create a collaborative connection that achieves that tricky balance between privacy and exposure. This doesn’t always work, but it’s so rewarding when it does that I don’t think I’ll ever stop trying. I will say here though that I don’t consider this work to be a documentary—it is social, built, and residential landscape work, but it doesn’t follow any structure or logic that is consistent or narrow enough to constitute a documentary.
Do you see a common thread in the stories you choose?
The common thread is that my work shows me what the web is that I belong to, and a feeling of belonging is priority #1 for me. When I feel like I belong, I am able to approach humanity with tenderness, hope, and humor that make it so that I can get out of bed in the morning. It’s optimism, I guess. Grief and hope, power and vulnerability, resilience and fragility, discipline and addiction. These are non-binary landmarks of humanity as it is now, as it has always been, and as it most likely will always be until our species is gone – they’re definitely common threads.
What was most interesting for you about the people/places you photographed?
I’m always curious about the power of association and the mutability of identity according to context and available information. Photographs allow for a deep questioning of the fixed nature of meaning. It is in our nature to categorize something and then quickly move on so we are ready to assess the next situation—that’s how we evolved, and we need to take more time to allow for the understanding of this shifting and changing, how time works to change both subject and viewer. My images freeze the people places and things I see into an immutable sameness - they aren’t going anywhere they aren’t going to change but you and I will and their arrangement might and their context definitely will, and in those variables there is an endless multiplicity of meaning, identity and narrative understanding.
Would you agree that we cannot relate fully with others if we do not accept that we are all alone in this world?
Yes, although I hope we’re both wrong.
“I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.”
— Willa Cather, My Àntonia
Editor: Rita Silva
12:34
12:34
BY ANTTI “VETTIS” VETTENRANTA
When I was 12 years old, my mum wrote me a 12-page letter. In the letter, which she wrote in spite of us living together, she tried to explain why life was sometimes so difficult. How we had been affected by our parents´ divorce when I was two years old. And how the lives of us four siblings were impacted by the illness of our second youngest sister. I was going to respond to mother´s letter, but I never did.
My first child was born on a Monday, at 12:34. A few years later, I got divorced. We had two children together.
The youngest of my four children was born when I was 34 years old. We built a house, my 12th apartment so far. We live in four generations and in three different houses on one large plot of land in Helsinki. Now I want to live my life in such a way that divorces are no longer handed down from generation to generation, and so that my phone would ring every day when I am on old man. Maybe this series of photographs is a reply to my mother´s letter. We are bad at talking about things.
BIO
Antti Vettenranta (b. 1976) is a staff photographer for a major magazine publishing company in Finland. In his free time, Vettenranta photographs his own projects, trying to get as close to himself as possible. He believes photography can be universal and therapeutic in the same way as medtitation: it can be exercised anywhere.
SOCIAL MEDIA/LINKS
http://www.vettis.net/
https://www.instagram.com/vettis_photographer
ODE por Edu Silva
ODE
BY EDU SILVA
Esta narrativa visual não é outro conto épico sobre a costa portuguesa e os seus heróicos navegadores. Esses dias desapareceram há muito tempo atrás assim como esses navegadores, que estão mortos ou a morrer. A globalização e a União Europeia vieram, viram, e conquistaram tudo. Barcos de pesca foram desmantelados e estritas quotas pesqueiras foram impostas, enquanto que ao mesmo tempo começou a ser implementada e disseminada, tanto à escala nacional como internacional, uma massiva campanha multiplataforma a promover o turismo em Portugal. E ainda que o turismo seja actualmente um sector em expansão neste país, actividades tais como a pesca ou a apanha do sargaço estão em risco de desaparecimento. Estas novas dinâmicas transfiguraram o tecido da paisagem social da costa portuguesa, alterando a morfologia deste território não apenas no sentido físico, mas também transformaram de forma gradual uma outrora grandiosa nação de navegadores numa frota de empregados de mesa e cuidadores indiscriminados dispostos a atender às necessidades dos turistas (tanto domésticos como estrangeiros).
A verdade é que neste admirável e inócuo mundo novo, já não há lugar para heróis e perigo. Tudo o que resta são os antigos contos sobre a costa portuguesa, histórias que ainda nos fazem sonhar acordados sobre um lugar que outrora foi o ponto de partida para a aventura. De facto, esta é uma conjuntura difícil para viver do mar. Mas ainda há algumas pessoas que são corajosas o suficiente para resistir às vagas de mudança e ousam lutar pelo seu direito de viver mais outro dia neste fabulado lugar.
Este ensaio visual é uma ode dedicada aos últimos habitantes da moribunda e outrora grandiosa costa portuguesa.
ODE
ODE
BY EDU SILVA
This visual narrative isn’t another epic tale about the portuguese coastline and its heroic seamen. Those days are long gone as well as those seamen, whom are either dead or dying. Globalization and the European Union came, saw, and conquered it all. Fishing boats were dismantled and strict fishing quotas were imposed, while at the same time a massive multiplatform campaign promoting tourism in Portugal began to be implemented and disseminated, both on a nacional and international scale. And while tourism is now a booming sector in this country, labors such as fishing or sargassum harvesting are becoming dying arts. These new dynamics altered the fabric of the social landscape of the portuguese coastline, changing the morphology of this territory not only in the physical sense, but also gradually turned a once great nation of seamen into a fleet of waiters and nondescript caretakers willing to tend to the needs of the tourists (foreign and domestic alike).
The truth of the matter is that in this admirable and innocuous new world, there is no place for heroes and danger anymore. All that’s left are the old tales about the portuguese coastline, stories that still make us daydream about a place that once was the starting point to adventure.
Indeed, this is a difficult conjuncture to make a living off the sea. But there are still a few people who are bold enough to resist the tides of change and dare to fight for their right to live yet another day in this fabled place.
This visual essay is an ode dedicated to the last inhabitants of the late and once great portuguese coastline.
WORK / WAYS OF LIFE
WORK / WAYS OF LIFE
WORK / WAYS OF LIFE
The gallery Work / Ways of Life gathers an array of contemporary photography projects (CPP) that explore and problematize the subject of work and ways of life characteristic of several populations of Porto’s Metropolitan Area in the contemporaneity. These CPP should, on the one hand, be attentive to the relationship between the spaces of architecture, the city, the territory and its experiences — i.e., communicate how these spaces are appropriated by people, reflecting the values and ways of life of contemporary society. On the other hand, the CPP’s should be informed by several references and artistic strategies, being able to set themselves apart from the readings and/or imagery of the traditional documentary universe.
Globalised contemporary societies present a set of characteristics that condition the ways of life and work of diverse populations. There are countless issues that strike several regions of the world, whether were on the most far away territories or the most isolated ones from market economies, on said emerging countries or on regions with a highly developed market economy.
We know that globalization is at the root of countless transformations in the dynamic of cities — a lot of them disruptive — and there is still a lively debate that questions the benefits and inconvenient consequences of this international process. On the one hand, there are those who try to engage in a debate that goes beyond the theoretical constraints of the realist / neorealist versus liberal / neoliberal theories or defend other visions about globalization and international relations between countries (i.e. constructivist, Marxist, post-modern and others more). On the other hand, there are those that in-between these different visons and theories try to understand the changes resulting from globalization in the world by introducing new logics that integrate inter-disciplinarily strategies in their analysis and ideas such as, for example, Ulrich Beck in its book The Metamorphosis of the World (2016) in which he explains how climate changes are transforming society, also approaching humanity’s existing potential of emancipation through catastrophe and metamorphosis inducted by climate change.
Posing some disruptive questions that might be interesting to explore in this gallery, we call attention to what Zygmunt Bauman defends on his book Liquid Modernity (2000) that we’re living in an age of “fluid” modernity, marked by the “disengagement, elusiveness, facile escape and hopeless chase”, in which the most “elusive, those free to move without notice, who rule”. Bauman also states that it was in this era that power became “exterritorial”, it ceased to be confined by the “resistance of space” and is now free to circulate instantaneously, assuming different shapes (emails, phone calls, etc.).
In the work plane, Bauman highlights the “uncertainty” of the current conjuncture and states that “flexibility” is the slogan of the current labor market, foretelling the end of the “job as we know it”, with the rise of work based on short-term contracts, rolling contracts or simply on the absence of contracts.
Yuval Noah Harari is another significant example because he is an author that tries to contextualise, in a global and alternative way, contemporary society problems thus giving a new insight into our present era. Integrating diverse knowledge-science, technology, art, politics, religion, and more-and leading us to self-reflection without falling into dogmas, Yuval makes a considerable synthesis effort by pointing to issues that are central to a world that is ever more filled with unstructured and often irrelevant information. The author, in his last book "21 Lessons for the 21st Century", tells us, among other things, that globalization is a global process that is influencing with an intensity and a scale never seen in several societies, leading to significant changes in the personal and moral conduct of many of us. Yuval draws attention to a very serious phenomenon in the present that is to live in a certain confusion because not only certain old social and political narratives have failed, as were fascism and communism, but also because liberalism in societies democratic politics, human rights and free-market capitalism now seem to be becoming discredited without credible alternatives to replace it. All that is happening, the author tells us, is all the more serious because it occurs at the very moment when an unprecedented revolution in information technology and biotechnology confronts humanity with challenges that may endanger its freedom. This is because the merger of these two areas can mean the loss of the work of millions of people, as well as the short circuit or decrease in the freedom and equity of opportunities that still exist at this time.
Another author we can refer is Ash Amin, that also discusses the changes in the contemporary labor market of the western world in the book Post-Fordism: A Reader (Studies in Urban and Social Change) (1994). In it, Amin highlights that “the centrality of large industrial complexes, blue-collar work, full employment, centralized bureaucracies of management, mass markets for cheap standardized goods, the welfare state, mass political parties and the centrality of the national state as a unit of organization” are under threat, contributing to the sense that an “old way of doing things might be disappearing or becoming reorganized”.
At last, we can also refer the authors whose answer towards globalization culminates in an effort to oppose it in its most disruptive aspects, contributing to an idea of greater sustainability and balance to contemporary society. Authors that often propose alternative and sustainable ways of living, or communities that model themselves after paradigms and utopian ideas that explore in theory and in practice new interactions e relationships between nature and human being, as well as a life based on other social, political and economical values. Examples of these authors, movemntes or alternative communities are, besides others, organisations as, for example, WWOOF - World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms – and their many organic farms located all around the world and also in Portugal.
All these changes in the contemporary social dynamics are also at the root of the constant transformation of societies and territories. And part of those transformations affected and continues to affect diverse labor activities, as well as the way of life of those who practice them.
In this subject, called Work / Ways of Life, we seek to understand Porto’s Metropolitan Area contemporary labor market:
- Which are the emerging professions and which are the one on the brink of extinction? - Which are the sectors of activity with the highest and smallest employability rate?
- Which new dynamics were created and which were lost?
- In what way diverse spaces and architectures reflect different ways of living and working?
Starting from the universe of contemporary documentary and artistic photography, it is through contemporary photography projects (CPP) that take advantage of this media as a vehicle of communication and as an instrument of investigation (where the imaginary and the fictional can and should be present in a significant way) that we intend to provide an answer to these interrogation, in addition to explore underlining questions of a cultural, social, economical and political nature of Porto’s Metropolitan Area labor market.
TRABALHO / MODOS DE VIDA
TRABALHO / MODOS DE VIDA
Featured
TRABALHO / MODOS DE VIDA
A galeria Trabalho / Modos de Vida reúne um conjunto de projectos de fotografia contemporânea (CPP) que exploram e problematizam a temática do trabalho e modos de vida característicos de diversas populações da AMP na contemporaneidade. Estes CPP devem, por um lado, estar atentos à relação entre os espaços de arquitectura, a cidade, o território e as suas vivências — ou seja, comunicar como estes espaços são apropriados pelas pessoas, reflectindo os valores e modos de vida da sociedade contemporânea. Por outro lado, os CPP devem ser informados por diversas referências e estratégias artísticas, sendo capazes de se destacar das leituras e/ou imagéticas do universo documental tradicional.
As sociedades contemporâneas globalizadas apresentam um conjunto de características que condicionam os modos de vida e de trabalho das mais diversas populações. Há inúmeros problemas que atingem muitas regiões do mundo. Quer estejamos em territórios mais afastados ou isolados das economias de mercado, em países ditos emergentes ou em regiões com uma economia de mercado altamente desenvolvida.
Sabemos que a globalização está na raiz de inúmeras transformações na dinâmica das cidades, muitas delas disruptivas e há ainda um aceso debate que questiona os benefícios e /ou inconvenientes deste processo internacional, havendo também quem tente, por um lado, encetar um debate que vá para além do espartilho teórico das teorias realistas / neo-realistas versus liberais / neo-liberais e / ou defenda outras visões sobre a globalização e as relações entre estado a nível internacional (i.e. teorias construtivistas, marxistas, pós-modernas, ecológicas e muitos outras mais). Há quem entre estas várias teorias ou movimento, tente perceber as mudanças no mundo em resultado da globalização introduzindo novas lógicas integrando uma componente interdisciplinar nessa análise da contemporaneidade como foi feito, por exemplo, por Ulrick Beck no seu livro “A metamorfose do mundo” (2016) onde explica como as alterações climáticas estão a transformar a sociedade e refere o potencial de emancipação existente para a humanidade a partir da catástrofe e da metamorfoses colocados pela mudança climática.
Referindo algumas questões disruptivas que podem interessar explorar nesta galeria, chamamos a atenção para o que Zygmunt Bauman defende no seu livro Liquid Modernity (2000) que é o facto de vivermos numa era de modernidade “fluída”, pautada pelo “desengajamento, elusividade, fuga fácil e perseguição desesperançada”. Bauman afirma ainda ter sido nesta era que o poder se tornou “exterritorial”, ao deixar de estar confinado pela “resistência do espaço” e é agora livre de circular de forma instantânea, assumindo diversas formas (emails, telefonemas, etc.). No plano do trabalho, Bauman destaca também a “incerteza” da conjuntura actual e afirma que a “flexibilidade” é o slogan do mercado, augurando o fim do “trabalho tal como nós o conhecemos”, com o crescimento cada vez maior dos contratos de curta-duração, contratos com termo incerto ou simplesmente da ausência de contratos.
Yuval Noah Harari é um outro exemplo significativo que interessa mencionar porque é um autor que tenta contextualizar de forma global e alternativa os problemas das sociedades contemporâneas, dando assim uma nova percepção da nossa era actual. Integrando diversos saberes – ciência, tecnologia, arte, política, religião e outras mais -, e levando-nos à auto-reflexão sem cair em dogmas, Yuval faz um esforço de síntese considerável apontando questões que são centrais num mundo cada vez mais repleto de informação não estruturada e muitas vezes irrelevante. O autor, no seu último livro “21 Lições para o Século XXI” diz-nos, entre outras coisas, que a globalização é um processo mundial que está a influenciar com uma intensidade e uma escala nunca vista diversas sociedades, levando a alterações significativas da conduta pessoal e moral de muitos de nós. Yuval chama a atenção para um fenómeno muito grave no presente que é o de vivermos numa certa confusão em virtude de, não só certas antigas narrativas sociais e políticas terem falido, como eram o fascismo e o comunismo, como também pelo facto do liberalismo nas sociedades das políticas democráticas, dos direitos humanos e do capitalismo de mercado livre parecerem agora estar a ficar descredibilizados, sem existirem alternativas credíveis para o substituir. Tudo isto que está a acontecer, diz-nos o autor, é ainda mais grave porque ocorre no preciso momento em que uma revolução sem precedentes das tecnologias da informação e da biotecnologia confronta a humanidade com desafios que podem colocar em perigo a sua liberdade. Isto porque a fusão destas duas áreas pode significar a perda do trabalho de milhões de pessoas, bem como o curto-circuito ou diminuição da liberdade e equidade de oportunidades que ainda existem neste momento.
Outro autor que podemos referir é Ash Amin que discute as mudanças no mercado de trabalho contemporâneo do mundo ocidental no livro Post-Fordism: A Reader (Studies in Urban and Social Change) (1994). Nele, Amin refere que “a centralidade dos grandes complexos industriais, o trabalho de colarinho azul, o emprego a tempo inteiro, burocracias centralizadas de gestão, mercados de massa para bens estandardizados de baixo custo, o estado de bem-estar social, partidos políticos de massas e a centralidade do estado nacional enquanto unidade de organização” estão sob ameaça, o que contribui para o sentimento de que um “velho método de fazer as coisas pode estar a desaparecer ou a tornar-se reorganizado”.
Por fim, também podemos referir os autores que tentam dar uma resposta a esta globalização capaz de a contrariar nos seus aspectos mais disruptivos, contribuindo para uma ideia de maior sustentabilidade e equilíbrio para a sociedade contemporânea. Autores que muitas vezes propõe modos de vida alternativos e sustentáveis ou comunidades que têm como guia paradigmas e ideais utópicas que exploram em teoria e na prática novas interações e relações entre a natureza e o humano, bem como uma vida assente noutros valores sociais, políticos e económicos. Exemplos destes autores, movimentos e / ou comunidades alternativas são, entre outras, por exemplo a organização WWOOF - World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms - e suas inúmeras quintas orgânicas espalhas pelo mundo fora e também em Portugal.
Todas estas alterações nas dinâmicas sociais contemporâneas estão também na raiz da constante transformação das sociedades e dos territórios. E parte dessas transformações afectaram e continuam a afectar diversas actividades do trabalho, assim como o modo de vida de quem as pratica.
Nesta temática, intitulada Trabalho / Modos de Vida, procuramos compreender o mercado do trabalho contemporâneo da AMP:
- Quais são as profissões emergentes e quais são as que se encontram em risco de extinção?
- Quais os sectores de actividade com maior e menor taxa de empregabilidade?
- Quais são as novas dinâmicas que se criaram e quais são as que se perderam?
- De que forma é que diversos espaços e arquitecturas reflectem diferentes modos de viver e de trabalhar?
Será a partir do universo da fotografia documental e artística, através de projectos de fotografia contemporânea (CPP) que tirem partido deste media enquanto veículo de comunicação e instrumento de investigação (onde o imaginário e ficcional podem e devem estar presentes de forma significativa) que tencionamos dar resposta a estas interrogações, além de explorar as questões de ordem cultural, social, económicas e políticas, subjacentes ao mercado do trabalho da AMP.
Under Construction
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
BY ALEX ATACK
Growing up in Dubai, my parents would take my siblings and I to the UK over the summer holidays. Arriving back to the UAE after five or six weeks away, we’d look out of the window of the car on the way home from the airport and point out all of the things that had changed in the time we’d been gone; a new skyscraper would’ve started construction on what used to be an empty sand lot, or a complex of villas had been flattened to make way for a hotel, or what used to be small roundabout was now on it’s way to becoming a spaghetti junction.
We’d play football in Safa Park – a huge green space with fair ground rides, ice cream stands and cafes. Then two years ago, they dug a canal right through the middle of it, bulldozing half of the park and circling a section of downtown Dubai to turn it into an island. The city changed so quickly, and it wasn’t sentimental about what it got rid of. And this is what Dubai has become known for; these construction projects are what you see on travel brochures and TV shows around the world.
They’ve had to keep up this rate of construction to mirror the city’s transient, expanding population. But because of it, residents live amongst an unusual landscape – a pattern of urban decay means that the peripheries of the city resemble a graveyard of half-funded construction projects. And in the city centres, land is constantly re-purposed for new construction ventures, meaning that the face of the city changes almost literally over night.
Shot over two years on whichever camera I had on me, this project is about the half-built spaces, and looks at how Dubai’s residents live amongst them.
Contact:
http://www.alexatack.com/
VISUAL SPACES OF CHAGE IN AMP: THE INTENTIONAL MANIPULATION OF IMAGE
VISUAL SPACES OF CHAGE IN AMP: THE INTENTIONAL MANIPULATION OF IMAGE
Os Projectos de Fotografia Contemporâneos (CPP) que integram esta galeria - imagens construídas e manipuladas intencionalmente - devem funcionar como narrativas visuais que sugerem uma nova leitura ou criam novos cenários idealizados de espaços arquitetônicos e púbicos já existentes.
Assim, estes trabalhos têm como referência autores que manipulam a imagem propositadamente, abandonando o compromisso de expressar literalmente a realidade percepcionada pelo olhar. Por um lado, estes podem ser autores que deliberadamente criam os seus projetos fotográficos (CPP) a partir de uma estratégia ou de um evento orquestrado com o objetivo de criar uma imagem ou série fotográfica. Alguns exemplos desses trabalhos são Erwin Wurm’s Outdoor Sculpture (1999), George Rousse’s Mairet (2000), Philip-Lorca diCorcia’s Head (2000) ou Jeff Wall's Passerby (1996).
Por outro lado, poderão ser autores que refletem as possibilidades atuais de criação de imagens com ferramentas digitais, que ampliam e potencializam significativamente a prática da fotografia, devendo estes CPP devem ser focados em cenários imaginários da atual Arquitetura e Espaços Públicos na AMP.
Indo além das tradicionais abordagens objetivas, explorando o universo ficcional e criando cenários alternativos ou leituras críticas dos espaços existentes, o objectivo é o de ir contra o consumo saturado de imagens de arquitectura nos mass media que é acrítico. Alguns exemplos dessas obras são os trabalhos de Idris Khan, Olivo Barbieri, Filip Dujardin, Beate Gütschow, Emilio Pemjean ou Isabel Brison.
Photograph by João Pedro Silva
VISUAL SPACES OF CHAGE IN AMP: THE INTENTIONAL MANIPULATION OF IMAGE
VISUAL SPACES OF CHAGE IN AMP: THE INTENTIONAL MANIPULATION OF IMAGE
The Contemporary Photography Projects (CPP) should be visually narrating through constructed and manipulated images that suggest a new reading of, or create new idealized scenarios of existing architectural and public spaces or orchestrated events.
Thus, these works should have as reference authors who manipulate the image on purpose, abandoning the commitment to the literal recording of reality as perceived by the eye. On the one hand, these can be authors who deliberately create their photographic projects (CPP) from a strategy or an event orchestrated for the sole purpose of creating an image or photographic series. Some examples of these works are Erwin Wurm’s Outdoor Sculpture (1999), George Rousse’s Mairet (2000), Philip-Lorca diCorcia’s Head (2000) or Jeff Wall’s Passerby (1996).
On the other hand, authors reflecting todays possibilities of image creation with digital tools, which expand and potentiate significantly the practice of photography, these CPP should be focused on imaginary scenarios of present Architecture and Public Spaces in AMP. Going beyond the traditional objective approaches, exploring the fictional universe and creating alternative scenarios or critical readings of existing spaces, we want to go against the uncritical saturated media consumption of architectural images. Some examples of these works are the works of Idris Khan, Olivo Barbieri, Filip Dujardin, Beate Gütschow, Emilio Pemjean or Isabel Brison.
Photograph by João Pedro Silva
CLOSED CITIES
CLOSED CITIES
BY GREGOR SAILER
SYNOPSIS
Closed Cities (2009–2012)
In his impressive photo series Gregor Sailer examines the forms taken by closed cities in Siberia, Azerbaijan, Qatar, Chile, Algeria / Western Sahara and Argentina. The term closed city was originally coined for the Soviet Union, where, for various reasons, the existence of numerous towns was long kept secret. Some of them were not officially "opened up" and added to maps until the early years of this century. Even today, there are still artificially created urban zones across the globe that are hermetically sealed off from the outside world either by walls or by the hostile landscape that surrounds them. These might be places where raw materials are extracted, military sites, refugee camps – or gated communities for the affluent. Such time-limited forms of urban settlement strikingly illustrate the turning point humanity is facing at the beginning of the 21st century in view of dwindling resources, climate change, political conflicts and the yearning for unqualified security.
BIOGRAPHY
Gregor Sailer was born in 1980 in the city of Tyrol, Austria where he currently lives and works.
Between 2002 and 2007, Sailer studied communication design, with a focus on photography and experimental film, at the Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts (Germany).
In 2015 he was granted his master’s degree in photographic studies from the same institution. He has since received numerous international awards and produced several publications and exhibitions in New York, Washington D.C., Paris, Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Barcelona, Vienna, Prague, and Budapest.
CONTACT
info@gregorsailer.com
2º Ciclo de debates AAI2Lab - Entrevista a Pedro Leão Neto
ENTREVISTA A PEDRO LEÃO NETO
O 2º Ciclo de debates Arquitectura, Arte, Imagem e Inovação (AAI2), organizado pelo CCRE / CEAU / FAUP e pelo AAi2 Lab, realizou-se em Dezembro de 2018 no U.Porto Media Innovation Labs, e teve como foco a apresentação do projeto Visual Spaces of Changes (VSC).
Pedro Leão Neto, coordenador do grupo de investigação CCRE , do grupo de investigação de Fotografia SCOPIO e Professor de CFM e CAAD na FAUP, fala um pouco sobre o projeto Visual Spaces of Change (VSC).
2ND EDITION OF THE AAI DEBATES AT MIL-UP
2ND EDITION OF THE AAI DEBATES AT MIL-UP
On the past 12th of December the second series of the AAI debates - Architecture, Art and Image took place at the Media Inovation Laboratories of the University of Porto (MIL-UP), in which scopio Editions was part of the organization together with the research group CCRE - CEAU from the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto (FAUP), MIL-UP and the Laboratory of Architecture, Art, Image and Inovation (AAi2Lab).The second edition of AAI was dedicated to the project Visual Spaces of Change. After the presentation of the project by Pedro Leão Neto, two roundtables have been held along the day.
The theme of the morning's round table was "Image and Transformation of Public Space: the use of Photograph as an Instrument to Research and Question the City" - in this debate opened to a full audience, several research papers were presented in the scope of documentary photography and (FBAUP), followed by interventions by Manuela Matos Monteiro (SPACE MIRA), José Miguel Rodrigues (FAUP), Pedro Bandeira (Faculty of Architecture U.Minho), Luís Gonzaga (Center ALGORITMI U.Minho) and Pedro Moura (Metro do Porto).
In the afternoon, the second roundtable was presented with the theme "Visual Research Methods and Transdisciplinary Approaches for the Construction of Bridges Between Architecture, Art And Image." This table was attended by and presented by architects, photographers, academics, curators and artists such as Daniel Moreira and Rita Castro Neves, Andreia Garcia (Architect and Curator), Isa Clara Neves (Investigadora de Pós Doutoramento / Ces), Susana Lourenço Marques and José Carneiro (FBAUP), Francisco Adão da Fonseca and Pedro Jervel (SKREI), Lara Jacinto (Photographer), David Viana (CM Porto) and Manuela Pinto (MIL / New Media for Heritage Lab).
The VSC presentation and subsequent debates, besides other things, allowed to explore diverse ways of how contemporary photography can be explored as a meaningful instrument of research about contemporary processes of urban change, producing visual synthesis about how architectures, places and spaces are used and lived, rendering visible aspects which are difficult to perceive without the purposeful use of image and photography.The wide range of institutions, organizations, groups, researchers and authors with an interest in architecture, cultural and artistic production, from inside and outside the academia world, that participated in this second edition of AAI debates confirmed the relevance of this initiative for opening academia to society, fostering greater social interaction among researchers, artists and curators beyond their traditionally circumscribed spaces of action, expanding their capacity to participate in the public domain, which is a common objective of the AAI debates, the MIL-UP Laboratories and the project Visual Spaces of Change.
2ª EDIÇÃO DOS DEBATES AAI NO MIL-UP
2ª EDIÇÃO DOS DEBATES AAI NO MIL-UP
No passado dia 12 de Dezembro realizou-se a segunda série de debates AAI - Arquitectura, Arte e Imagem nos Laboratórios de Inovação Media da Universidade do Porto (MIL-UP), na qual a scopio Editions fazia parte da organização, juntamente com o grupo de investigação CCRE - CEAU da Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto (FAUP), os MIL-UP e o Laboratório de Arquitectura, Arte, Imagem e Inovação (AAi2Lab). A segunda edição da AAI foi dedicada ao projeto Visual Spaces of Change - após a apresentação do projeto, seguiram-se duas mesas redondas ao longo do dia.
O tema da mesa redonda da manhã foi "Imagem e Transformação do Espaço Público: o Uso da Fotografia como Instrumento de Investigação e Questionamento da Cidade" – neste debate aberto a uma plateia cheia, foram apresentados diversos trabalhos de investigação no âmbito da fotografia documental e artística por Miguel Leal (FBAUP) e Gabriela Vaz-Pinheiro (FBAUP), seguido de intervenções de Manuela Matos Monteiro (ESPAÇO MIRA), José Miguel Rodrigues (FAUP), Pedro Bandeira (Faculdade de Arquitectura U.Minho), Luís Gonzaga (Centro ALGORITMI U.Minho) e Pedro Moura (Metro do Porto).
Da parte da tarde, a segunda mesa redonda teve como tema "Métodos de Investigação Visual e Abordagens Transdisciplinares para a Construção de Pontes entre Arquitectura, Arte E Imagem”. Esta mesa contou com a participação e apresentação de trabalhos de arquitectos, fotógrafos, académicos, curadores e artistas como a dupla Daniel Moreira e Rita Castro Neves, Andreia Garcia (Arquitecta e Curadora), Isa Clara Neves (Investigadora de Pós Doutoramento / Ces), Susana Lourenço Marques e José Carneiro (FBAUP), Francisco Adão da Fonseca e Pedro Jervel (SKREI), Lara Jacinto (Fotógrafa), David Viana (CM Porto) e Manuela Pinto (MIL /New Media for Heritage Lab).
A apresentação do VSC e os debates promovidos pelas mesas redondas permitiram discutir diversas formas de explorar a fotografia contemporânea enquanto instrumento significativo de investigação, registo e prospeção de processos contemporâneos de mudança urbana, através da produção de narrativas visuais sobre como arquiteturas, lugares e espaços são utilizados e vividos, tornando visíveis aspectos que são difíceis de perceber sem o uso intencional da imagem e da fotografia.
O amplo espectro de instituições, organizações, grupos, investigadores e autores com interesses diversificados em arquitetura, fotografia, produção cultural e artística, que participaram desta segunda edição dos debates da AAI confirmaram a relevância desta iniciativa no movimento de abertura da academia à sociedade, fomentando maior interação social entre académicos, artistas, curadores e representantes de diversas instituições públicas para além de seus espaços de atuação tradicionais, ampliando sua capacidade de participação no domínio público, sendo este um objectivo comum dos debates AAI, dos MIL-UP e do projeto Visual Spaces of Change.
Paradise Fell
PARADISE FELL
BY DARSH SENEVIRATNE
Synopsis
Being raised by a Sri Lankan father meant pieces of his culture were scattered throughout our home and daily life. It has been strange but intriguing to watch how all these parts of my upbringing are now weaving their way into my everyday interactions in the cultural climate of Australia.
Drawaing inspiration from William Christenberry’s musings of rural Alabama and Lyndal Iron’s raw documentation of Sydney’s notorious Parramatta Road, my series “Paradise Fell“ aims to capture a portrait of my father’s home country of Sri Lanka - a nation struggling to define themselves in a post-war economic climate.
In only my second visit to Sri Lanka, I began a photographic exploration of the effects that the civil war and tsunami had on the landscape and its inhabitants. With an aim to visit wartom Jaffina in the north, and surfing hotspot Trincomalee and Arugambay on the east, my father and I retraced a route he had travelled with his family fifty year prior. Many areas we visited were quite sensitive: roofless, shells of houses with years of vegetation regrowth claiming back the structure; abandoned factories still manned by military checkpoints; parts of the city still inaccessible.
In a way, Sri Lanka is the quintessential battler. Rebuilding a society, both physically and psychologically, after a twenty-six year civil war and a deadly tsunami that killed over thirty thousand people is no simple task. Add to that the exponential influx of tourism and the economic politics it brings, and you have a country struggling to focus on the necessities, neglecting their people, and falling to rebuild what was so violently taken away.
Sri Lanka is going through a rapid development that it is not que ready for, and to this I wanted to turn a camera to further explore with an open-minded, positive conscience, and to shoot with respect and purpose.
Artist Statement
Darsh Seneviratne is a twenty-four year old photographer specialising in series-based work. With a passion for documentation and collection cultivated from a young age, his series range from being compiled over a few days to several years. Drawing on technical knowledge founded in traditional analogue photography, Seneviratne documents personal spaces and their inherent human interactions, collecting momentary happenings and structured portraits. These scenes compile series that seek to highlight the lasting traces of people. With a thorough focus on colour and image structure, and bound by the precision of accuracy demanded by analogue technology, Seneviratne creates these series to serve as a reflection of human interaction with per- sonal and public realms and how we perceive them.
Contact
darsh.seneviratne@gmail.com
www.cargocollective.com/darsh
@darshmallos
Praça Pedro Nunes - Frederico Martinho
PRAÇA PEDRO NUNES
BY FREDERICO MARTINHO
O trabalho visual Praça Pedro Nunes corresponde a um primeiro estudo exploratório desenvolvido no âmbito do projecto Visual Spaces of Change (VSC) que tem como objecto de estudo a praça Pedro Nunes.
A primeira abordagem com a praça surgiu a partir das primeiras visitas ao local, chegado pela estação de metro Carolina Michaelis (imagem 1). Aqui, é imediata a relação visual que a praça estabelece com o eixo da rua de Augusto Luso através da centralidade de fachada do liceu Rodrigues de Freitas. A partir daqui tornou-se óbvio alargar o campo de análise a todo esse eixo dada a preponderância que este assume na cidade. Esse primeiro contacto visual que acontece no largo ajardinado da estação constrói imediatamente a ligação à praça, conferindo à rua que liga estes dois ponto um carácter de promenade (imagem 2). Este ponto que culmina o fim do olhar, descendente nesse sentido, faz com que o perfil banal e aleatório (ou seja, irreferenciado) da rua ganhe importância na medida em que a coloca na cidade através de um jogo de legibilidade (Lynch, Kevin). É nesta noção de legibilidade, tão cara aos arquitectos e urbanistas, que as fotografias (as que revelam) poderão assumir não só o papel de análise dessas leituras mas também, elas próprias, se apresentarem como objectos de pensamento autónomos.
Numa segunda leitura, já no interior da praça, surgem então outras características inerentes a esta praça, nomeadamente a relação entre as fachadas (imagem 3) que compõem o lado norte deste meio círculo e o simutâneo afastamento destas em relação à escola. Pelo desenho do jardim existente no centro, com uma sebe a impedir um atravessamento mais franco (imagem 4); um forte tráfego automóvel da rua que cruza a praça; pela carência de programa relevante para o espaço público (imagem 5); pelo abandono de alguns destes edifícios, esta praça é composta por inúmeros factores que dificultam a sua legibilidade. E então é nesta duplicidade que a praça apresenta - a fachada monumental e vivência do liceu, de um lado; a descaracterizada e pouco activa rua semi-circular, de outro lado - que se pode colocar a hipótese de um lugar que desconstrói a sua legibilidade consoante a sua aproximação. Ou seja, no processo da construção mental da cidade a força desta praça passa pela marcação de um ritmo de aproximação no seu eixo norte-sul, ao mesmo tempo que se destrói quando lhe descobrimos o interior.
A partir daqui podemos admitir que a leitura deste espaço (e, talvez, de outros espaços públicos) também se faz de distâncias - de aproximações e afastamentos. Nesse sentido, procuro, através da fotografia, explorar a percepção de interior e exterior da praça e potenciar uma experiência iminentemente háptica e visual, abrindo-a a uma ideia de cidade que assenta em vínculos físicos e imaginários.
Construção de Espaço Público na Cidade do Porto durante o século XX
CONSTRUÇÃO DE ESPAÇO PÚBLICO
NA CIDADE DO PORTO DURANTE O SÉCULO XX
Featured
Os projectos fotográficos desta galeria têm como suporte a investigação conduzida por João Castro Ferreira no âmbito do seu doutoramento subordinado ao título Construção de Espaço Público na Cidade do Porto durante o século XX(2018 – 2013) um estudo que se debruça sobre compreensão da caracterização morfológica do espaço público, construído na cidade do Porto durante o período de 1890 a 2010, atendendo, em particular ao seu entendimento enquanto estrutura compositiva, procuramos distinguir tipos formais predominantes.
Procura-se através da fotografia documental e artística exploar esta temática do espaço público compreendendo estes espaços como objecto de trabalho documental e artístico, tendo como preocupação trazer novas leituras sobre estes espaços públicos e arquitectura. Há um especial interesse em explorar as leituras destes espaços públicos através de um percusro com diversas aproximações e afastamentos. Procura-se através da fotografia, explorar a percepção de interior e exterior das praças e potenciar uma experiência iminentemente háptica e visual, acreditando numa ideia de cidade que assenta em vínculos físicos e imaginários.
OPEN CALL Bienal'19 - Ci.CLO Bienal
Open call | Artist Creativity Grants
Application deadline: 06.01.2019 The 2019 Ci.CLO Bienal Fotografia do Porto in partnership with the Mira Forum and with the support of the Goethe-Institut Portugal, will award two Bolsas de Criação (Artist Creativity Grants) to support the development of new work to be exhibited in the Bienal programme curated by José Maia.
The 2019 Open Call is applicable to artists who are nationals or non-Portuguese residents in Portugal, their primary media is photography and/or video and their proposal responds to the theme of the 2019 Bienal, Adaptation and Transition.
Calendar
Deadline for submission of proposals: 06.01.2019
Application Outcome: 14.01.2019
Project development period: 21 January to 19 April 19 2019
Exhibition: 16 May to 3 July 2019
Download notice in PDF.
Estações de Metro
ESTAÇÕES DE METRO
Com este projeto pretende-se utilizar a fotografia como instrumento de registo, ficção, comunicação e análise crítica do espaço público, tendo as estações de metro da AMP e suas envolventes como territórios de estudo. O objectivo é o de criar e propor um conjunto de narrativas visuais críticas sobre os espaços públicos, programa e envolvente das estações de Metro. Interessa-nos sobretudo projectos capazes de adoptar estratégias no universo da fotografia contemporânea - documental artístico - para simultaneamente, por um lado, documentar e registar as dinâmicas, processos, história e arquitecturas das Estações de Metro e, por outro, serem instrumento de investigação, descoberta e compreensão destas dinâmicas, processo e arquitecturas - espaços públicos.
Interessa que os CPP sejam capazes de trazer nova(s) perspetiva(s) sobre os espaços e as obras de arquitectura das Estações de Metro do Porto e que se distingam por uma apropriação artística consciente da imagem fotográfica, que é usada através de uma gramática e sintaxe próprias. Esta linguagem visual da fotografia deve ser utilizada não só como forma de registo e expressão da cultura arquitectónica e espaços das Estações de Metro do Porto, mas também como estratégia artística de forma a que as narrativas visuais tragam um novo discurso sobre o espaço e estas arquitecturas, o que significa, entre outros aspetos, entender a arquitectura simultaneamente como objeto de estudo disciplinar e artístico.
Fotografia de Paula Camilo