International Symposium:
The lost-and-found: revising art stories in search of potential changes
December 6 | Colégio Almada Negreiros (NOVA FCSH) and NowHere gallery
December 7 | MNAC, Lisbon
The symposium final programme is now available!
Registration is open until 28 November for attendees. Fee: 3€
In this symposium, we propose to critically engage with the noticeable shift in understanding the paradigm of art. This departs from ‘interpreting’ and ‘decoding’, towards a physical, affective and material experiencing within diverse contexts and communities.
Objects approached from a new contemporary perspective may be revealed as lost, but at the same time, also (re)found, allowing for the negotiation potentials of their uses, understandings and performativity. Attending to relations and things that were once discarded as unworthy enables us to unlearn, and re-define existing concepts of identity relationships (gender, class, ethnic, spiritual, familial) and unearth forgotten rituals, languages and stories (her-stories, it-stories, their-stories). We question the circumstances and contexts, and the presence and performativity of objects (considered as having artistic qualities) within spaces to reveal neglected, disregarded, ignored or lost potentials.
Imagined as a series of three events in three locations – Lisbon, Warsaw, Riga – in order to emphasise the importance of local socio-cultural and political contexts, this symposium will consider the practical and beneficial role of art objects and the space(s) they create for and towards their users. The arts’ ability to provoke curiosity, wonder, joy and pleasure activates attentiveness, respect and gratitude. We will explore the diverse and varied existence of art objects, their manifestations and status, and interrogate the space of art and the materiality it offers with regard to its potential to foster and support empathy, responsibility and response-ability towards others and care for and about a better communal life.
More information in the symposium website: thelostandfoundlisbon.weebly.com
