Buildings and Remnants (Edificios e vestigios) is a project that presents works of art within the framework of an essay-project that is meant to serve as a multidisciplinary reflection on post-industrial spaces in terms of techno-scientific reading of the potentiality of buildings, materials and the machinic, along with other less physical dimensions of materiality, as the concepts of performativity, spatiality, affectivity, or the even the concept of the romantic. The research tools include visual culture, architecture and cinematic image, exploring in its unfolding the research tools of history, anthropology, ethnography, or archeology (as field work, or as the documentation of traces), applied in an experimental way to explore the cultural dimension of physical space immediately tied in with two particular countries: Poland and Portugal. Ultimately, the conference segment aims to weight the potential of spaces that have fallen out of disuse - factories, warehouses and residences - to see what they can offer for the future.
Curated by Inês Moreira and Aneta Szylak, the survey features 30 individual works that address the subject at hand, while sparking a dialogue among artists and architecture professionals, as well as institutions and research teams. The questions posed ask: How to read, record and transform the post-industrial? Or, more specifically, what should be done with post-industrial spaces?
Romantic ideals of architectural and economic grandeur are set against a historical and practical survey of particular sites, including the social and political dimension of labour, as well as the progress of buildings, their, rehabilitation, reconstruction and adaptation. The projects on show span a wide range of media: art, architecture, photography, design, sound, cinema, engineering, history, archaeology, anthropology, or ethnography, and are organized along six different lines. These are divided further into six major fields: Spatiality, Performativity, Affectivity, Materiality, Objectuality, Technicality.
Polish artists participating in the exhibition include the duo Aleksandra Went and Alicja Karska, who present a video about how residents of Gdańsk coexist with the varied landscape of Gdańsk, both palatial and post-industrial. Dorota Nieznalska presents a structure that represents the reconstruction of the destroyed gate of the Gdańsk Shipyard after it was demolished by communist authorities aiming to stifle the workers' strike. Michał Szlaga's photographs capture the degradation of the now-defunct shipyard, while Julita Wójcik presents her "wavy block" housing estate modeled on real residential buildings constructed in this style in the socialist era. Mariusz Waras' intricate murals add life and colour to the drab post-communist landscape of the city. Some take a nostalgic approach to the subject, while others are unforgivably critical of the flaws of the nation's non-linear architectural evolution.
The Polish roster of artists, most of them young people in their 30s, have been selected by Aneta Szylak, curator and art theorist. She is co-founder and currently Artistic Director of Alternativa and director of Wyspa Institute of Art in the former Gdańsk Shipyard premises in Poland. The exhibitions she curates are characterised by a strong response towards the cultural, political, social, architectural and institutional specificity, such as Estrangement with Hiwa K at The Showroom, London and Chosen in Digital Art Lab in Holon (Israel) in collaboration with Galit Eilat,Her writings have been published in Aprior Magazine, n.paradoxa, Art Journal, ArtKrush. Art Margins. Currently she is writing her PhD thesis at Copenhagen Doctoral School Copenhagen University and Goldsmiths in London.
The event spans an exhibition, a series of meetings with artists, architects, archaeologists and other professionals, as well as a collection of texts and photographs of ideas and findings drawn from this experimental project.
Buildings and Remnants takes place between the 29th of September - 9th of December 2012 in the former ASA textile factory located on the edge of the Guimaraes Covas industrial area, which today serves as a cultural centre.
Artists in the exhibition: Karski Alice & Aleksandra Went , The Decorators , André Cepeda , Arquivo de Pos-Materiais, Arturo Franco , Dorothy Nieznalska , Eduardo Matos, Fábricas & ROTULOS, Frederico Lobo & Tiago Hespanha, Grzegorz Klaman , Jonathan Saldanha, Jordi Badia , LAB C & R - IPTomar, Mariana Jacob, Mariusz Waras , Micael Nussbaumer, Michal Szlaga , Museu da FEUP, Museu ISEP , Nuno Coelho , Patrícia Azevedo Santos , Paulo Mendes , Pedro Araújo & Ecomuseu de Barroso, Pedro Bandeira & Sofia Santos & Joan Nascimento , Konrad Pustoła , Pedro Tudela , Reimaginar Guimaraes , Manuel Rui Vieira, Julita Wojcik .
For more information, see: www.buildingsremnants.com
Editor: Agnieszka Le Nart
Source: Press information