Architecture, Art & Philosophy

News

Magazine launch: Scopio Magazine #5

Next Wednesday, the 30th of May, I'll be talking about Scopio Magazine #5 with Victor dos Reis (FBAUL), Pedro Leão Neto (main editor of Scopio Magazine, FAUP), Paulo Catrica (Photographer, UNL) and Rogério Taveira (FBAUL) at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lisbon (FAUBL), around an 18h30m (Auditório Lagoa Henriques). After interviewing Hélène Binet, Philippe Ruault, Bas Princen and Thomas Demand for the previous numbers of the magazine, I had the pleasure of interviewing the photographer Paulo Catrica for the current issue and to talk about his training abroad, his main themes, instruments and techniques. 

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Susana Ventura
Upcoming lecture: The emergence of a Poetic Landscape in the vague city terrains

Next Tuesday, 29th of May, I'll be delivering a Seminar within the thematic cycle "Critical readings on the experience of the city" organised by our Art, Criticism and Aesthetic Experience Group, IFILNOVA. The Session will take place between 15h00-18h00, Room Multiusos 2 (Building ID), floor 4, at the FCSH, Nova University in Lisbon. Ana Mira will also be presenting her interesting research.

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Susana Ventura
New article: About the exhibition "Talk Tower for Ingrid Jonker" by Ângela Ferreira

Contemporânea is a monthly digital magazine featuring critical essays, interviews, artists profiles, exhibitions' reviews, and other contents, about contemporary art. For the August issue, I've written about the exhibition "Talk Tower for Ingrid Jonker" by Ângela Ferreira in collaboration with Paul Grendon (photographs). The text is in Portuguese and you may read it here.

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Susana Ventura
Curated Curators (II)

Curated Curators (II) is the second exhibition within a cycle of three curated by the Portuguese artists Sara & André for the gallery Zaratan - Arte Contemporânea. For this second take, they've asked curators, whose primary education is from a different background, but have been working on art exhibitions or across fields, to select a work of art or a piece of an exhibition that they have curated. Following this kind invitation, I've asked the Portuguese artist Paulo Catrica to display a photograph of the series "Places of Intimacy," initially thought for an exhibition that did not take place at the Convent of Jesus in Setúbal, along with a work developed in parallel with SAMI Arquitectos. The exhibition will open this Thursday, 18 of May (2017). 

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Susana Ventura
Scopio Sophia launch

On the 18th of April, Scopio Sophia will be launched at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lisbon (FAUBL), a magazine I co-edit as part of the work that has been developed within the research group for Representation and Images of Architecture of the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto (FAUP). Edward Dimendberg was the invited editor for this first number and Iñaki Bergera for the upcoming number. The Call for Papers is already open. Check the magazine's website.

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Susana Ventura
24 Hours

I'll take part in the exhibition 24 Hours at Galeria de Arquitectura / Gallery of Architecture opening this Saturday, 14th January from 4 p.m. on (Address: Rua do Rosário, 191, Porto).

From the curators Andreia Garcia and Diogo Aguiar: "24 Hours is an exhibition that highlights the amount of specialized architectural information that is launched in the cyber world in just one day, chosen at random, taking as reference some of the most visited architectural sites in the world."

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Susana Ventura
Upcoming lecture: Through an Intensive Architecture: the Composition of Silence as an Architectonic Sensation

On the 23rd of June, I'll be presenting my paper "Through an Intensive Architecture: the Composition of Silence as an Architectonic Sensation”, at The Place of Silence: Experience, Environment, and Affect International Conference, at the Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture.

I’ll be discussing how we compose Silence in architecture, understanding it as an aesthetic and spatial sensation. The Cemetery in Malmö, by Lewerentz, and the Steilneset Memorial in Vardø, by Zumthor, are two of the examples to be analysed where one may find silence as an architectonic sensation, a sensation that fills the interval of an intensive body-space independently of time and seasons. Relevantly, the two examples are connected to certain understandings of death and, nevertheless, both compose a pure sensation of silence in which no trace of melancholy is left and space never becomes sentimental.

For more information, please visit the conference's website.

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Susana Ventura
Upcoming lecture: Pas de deux: an attempt to define architecture’s specificity from its out-tonomy

On the 21st of June, I'll be presenting my paper "Pas de deux: an attempt to define architecture's specificity from its out-tonomy", at The Critic|all Conference - International Conference on Architectural Design and Criticism, at Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid, in Madrid, Spain.

Starting with Deleuze’s lecture on the creative act “Qu’est-ce que l’act de création?”, I'll be discussing, in a first approach, architecture’s own specificity, testing its very limits, and then exposing them to different disciplines and art forms, such as dance and philosophy, evaluating what these encounters produce and what, in its turn, allows us to rethink about architecture’s own ideas, namely to rethink critically the position of the body in architecture after the clichés produced during the 90s and the beginning of the present century.

More information: visit the conference's website.

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Susana Ventura
Upcoming talk: Imaginary Topographies

On Wednesday, May 11th, at 6.30 p.m., at the Video Library of the Lisbon Municipal Archives (Largo do Calvário, n.º 2), within the second edition of the Imaginary Topographies cycle dedicated to architecture (which will occur during the month of May with a total of 4 sessions), I will be presenting a personal selection of a few sequences of the film “Ninguém Duas Vezes”, by Jorge Silva Melo, and talk along with the director Jorge Silva Melo and Francisco Frazão (researcher and programmer at Culturgest). For more info about the event, please follow this link (in Portuguese).

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Susana Ventura
Upcoming presentation and talk: Instruments of Critique

Next Wednesday, 23rd of March, I'll be talking about "Instruments of Critique", along with Jorge Figueira, Luís Santiago Baptista, and Gabriela Raposo as moderator. This is a parallel event to the exhibition "Modern Masterpieces Revisited Series", by Luís Santiago Baptista, currently on display at the Note Gallery and to which catalogue I've written the essay "Mix Tapes". 

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Susana Ventura
Upcoming talk: Mapping and Debating Habitar Portugal (Inhabiting Portugal)

Next Wednesday, 16th of March, I'll be talking about the Habitar Portugal 2009-2011 edition, which I've curated together with Rita Dourado and Maria Rita Pais, along with the curators of all previous editions. This is a parallel event to the present edition of Habitar Portugal 2012-2014, currently on display at the Porto Municipal Gallery. Feel free to come and participate in the debate!

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Susana Ventura
Upcoming Talk: The journey as research lab in architecture

On the 19th of February, I'll be speaking about the journey as research lab in architecture, from the personal experience of the journey I made between June and August 2014 to Japan, Centre and North Europe, in search of an Intensive Architecture. The talk is part of a wider panel around an upcoming journey to some of the most important works by Fernando Távora. For more information, please visit: www.revisitavora.wordpress.com

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Susana Ventura
Performance & Philosophy Seminar: How to compose sensations in architecture - construction of a Map of Intensities

The Permanent Performance & Philosophy Seminar held in the context of the Performance & Philosophy Department of AELab (Aesthetics and Philosophy Laboratory for Artistic Practices of the IFILNOVA - Institute of Philosophy of the Nova University in Lisbon) has as goal to constitute itself as a platform for discussion and experimentation in the performance and philosophy fields in their theoretical and practice dimensions, uniting researchers and artists.

The fourth session will be held by me under the title "How to compose sensations in architecture - construction of a Map of Intensities". The Seminar will take place on the 27th of January of 2016, between 6-8 p.m., Room 0.06, Building I&D / Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, Nova University in Lisbon (Avenida de Berna 26). These sessions are free and open to all interested. 

O Seminário Permanente em Performance e Filosofia, realizado no contexto da secção de Performance e Filosofia do AELab - Laboratório de Estética e de Filosofia das Práticas Artísticas do IFILNOVA - Instituto de Filosofia da Nova, tem por objectivo constituir-se como uma plataforma de discussão e experimentação entre as áreas da performance e da filosofia nas suas dimensões teóricas e práticas, reunindo investigadores e artistas. 

A quarta sessão consiste no Seminário da investigadora Pós-Doc Susana Ventura, intitulado "Como compor sensações em arquitectura - construção de um mapa intensivo". O seminário terá lugar no dia 27 de Janeiro de 2016, entre as 18h00 e as 20h00, na sala 0.06, Edifício I&D / Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas - Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Avenida de Berna 26, Lisboa). Estas sessões são livres e abertas a todos os interessados.

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Susana Ventura
Upcoming Lecture: "Intensive Architecture: an inexistent aesthetic category in the Theory of Architecture"

On the 21st of November morning (panel 19), I'll be presenting my paper "Intensive Architecture: an inexistent aesthetic category in the Theory of Architecture - through the study of silence as a spatial sensation", at the This Thing Called Theory Conference (AHRA 2015 - 12th International Architectural Humanities Research Association Conference), at the Leeds Beckett University, School of Art, Architecture and Design.

I'll discuss how "Intensive architecture" is an inexistent category in the theory of architecture, stemming from the aesthetic problem of sensation, which aims to understand how certain sensations, such as intimacy, silence, contemplation, among others, are composed in space and sustained through time (as the eternal quality of the work of art. 

The Cemetery in Malmö, by Lewerentz, and the Steilneset Memorial in Vardø, by Zumthor, are the two examples to be analysed where one may find silence as a spatial sensation that fills the interval of an intensive body-space, independently of time and seasons.

Visit the website

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Susana Ventura