Portugal has been one of the countries most affected by the Eurozone crisis. Has this context been a major factor on the thrust of your programming – apart from presumably on your funding?
Yes, definitely. We have all been taken by surprise at the extent of the fallout and the repercussions across this country have been huge. I think increasingly in this context, institutions like triennales and biennales are interested in taking on more civic roles and in exploring how to invest in the physical and cultural fabric of the city. Lisbon is certainly pushing that as much as possible.
The first way is through the New Publics programme which is specifically designed to address the specific context of practicing architecture and critiquing architectural practice in Lisbon, and additionally through our Crisis Buster grants, we gave 2,500 euros to ten projects, which including research into empty buildings in Lisbon, a political newspaper for public space and community initiatives in Lisbon.
How are you breathing new life or making relevant the biennale/triennale model, especially given this context?
I am working with a very strong and young curatorial team. We see the Close, Closer project as a space where critical discourse can be generated and new modes of thinking and practicing architecture can take place. We are exploring this by positioning each exhibition and project as a polar extreme of one form of contemporary architectural practice from agency to the intimate and speculative, to the dispersed and the pedagogical.
We are taking the Triennale into the city in quite a substantial way with our Associated Projects programme which features over 90 projects including morning runs, radio stations, communal clothes washes, restaurant tours and so on. Our Crisis Buster projects intend to support long-term civic initiative in Lisbon.
I have been really influenced by the previous biennales that I have been in involved with – the 2009 Shenzhen Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale and the 2011 Gwangju Design Biennale. In both events, the chief curators were working hard to push the genre of the event to explore the city, to work with an idea of a lasting legacy and also to use the moment to question the discipline itself.
“Close, Closer” is asking a lot of questions. To turn one of your own key questions around: what questions should architecture be asking today?
Yes, Close, Closer is about asking questions and not necessarily about giving the answers. We don’t see the exhibitions as ways of dispatching critical information but rather generating conversations and questions. In the context of Lisbon today, the question “What is architecture in a time of crisis?” is the one we’re hoping to answer.
Beatrice Galilee (*1982, London) is a London-based curator, writer and critic of contemporary architecture and design. She trained in architecture at Bath University, and in the history of architecture at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL.
She is the chief curator of the 2013 Lisbon Architecture Triennale, Close, Closer; the co-founder and director of The Gopher Hole, an exhibition and event space in London; architectural critic at Domus; and an associate lecturer at Central St Martins College of Art and Design.
She curated Hacked at the 2012 Milan Design Week, was senior curator at the 2011 Gwangju Design Biennale in Korea, and European curator of the 2009 Shenzhen Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism.
She is a freelance contributor to several international exhibitions and publications of architecture and design and from 2006-2009 was architecture editor at Icon magazine.
Close, Closer, the third Lisbon Architecture Triennale describes its aim as providing “an insight into the plurality of contemporary spatial practice.” For three months the curatorial team: Beatrice Galilee, chief curator, and curators Liam Young, Mariana Pestana and José Esparza Chong Cuy, will be examining the multiple possibilities of architectural output through critical and experimental exhibitions, events, performances and debates across the city.
The strands of programming include:
– Future Perfect, curated by Liam Young, looking at the imaginary urbanism, the landscapes and the narratives of a future city.
– The Real and Other Fictions, curated by Mariana Pestana, an exhibition of hyper-real architecture made of interdisciplinary spatial interventions at the scale of 1:1.
– New Publics, curated by José Esparza Chong Cuy, a series of acts in a city centre public square, addressing the concept of civic as opposed to public space.
– The Institute Effect, paying homage to the contemporary architectural institution – magazines, journals, websites, galleries, project spaces, archives, libraries and museums – and providing an embassy for their activity during the Triennale.
– Publications: Six special edition digital publications published over one year and designed by Zak Group, collectively designed to locate the theme of plurality in spatial practice into a broader global context.
– Crisis Buster Grants Programme, with grants awarded to support ten civic and social initiatives tackling specific issues identified in Lisbon, with potential for future continuation or replication, including funding for a political newspaper, supporting a community kitchen and garden and funding a new youth group.
Close, Closer, the third Lisbon Triennale will run from 12 September to 15 December, 2013.
Since getting to know Lisbon through this project, what do you love the most about the city?
I know it’s famous, but the light really is incredible.
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