On January 12th, Escola das Artes promotes an Open Day, open to the entire community, to celebrate the inauguration of the refurbished facilities in Campo de Ourique. With concerts, performances, workshops, conversations and exhibitions, the event will have free entry. Succeeding the Institute of Arts and Crafts – IAO, the School of Arts was born from a commitment by the University Teaching Cooperative to promote the teaching of artistic practice and thought.

The program will begin at 3:00 pm with the opening of the exhibition When Waves are Mountains, by Joana Patrão. The exhibition brings together a set of images made between 2014 and 2021 and from various series by the artist. Such images were the basis of the artwork now presented by the school for the first year of activity and which must be renewed annually. Joana Patrão's work focuses on the study of landscape, thinking of it simultaneously as a symptom of the nature-culture conflict and a potential process of reunion. His practice fluctuates between video, drawing, photography and the use of natural processes and materials. 

At the same time, the workshop will take place Drawing with Eyes Closed, guided by Inês Viegas Oliveira, dedicated to illustration and creativity and aimed at the whole family. In this illustration workshop the aim is to draw what you cannot see. And there are pencils, pens, paper and to write out whistles, thoughts, dreams and ideas.

At 4:00 pm, a conversation will follow between the director of the School of Arts, Luís Lima, and the director of the Architecture department at the Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa, Ricardo Carvalho, moderated by Alexandra Martins. Titled An Aesthetics for the Future, the conversation will seek to answer the questions what aesthetic? It is what future?. Another issue at stake will be that of teaching the arts, seeking to understand its relevance today and the preponderance of an interdisciplinary approach.

At 5:00 pm, Portuguese musician Vasco Alves presents the exploratory concert Small Parts for a Bagpipe under Construction. His work investigates the materiality of sound and the nature of acoustic phenomena through the use of unstable electronic and acoustic processes. These include synthesis and amplification techniques, the bagpipe or custom wind instruments. With the bagpipes the approach focuses on disturbing the air flow, in order to explore the physical limits of the instrument and the relationship between its acoustic qualities and sounds generated electronically, or by other instruments.

Finally, Catarina Real and Ângelo Cid Neto present the performance Here now, at 18:00, which explores lines of reasoning around the action of bodies and their learning of movement and the difference between danced movement and practical movement.

The Escola das Artes Open Day takes place on January 12, 2024 and entry is free.

◌ PROGRAM ◌

15:00
Opening of the exhibition When Waves are Mountains, by Joana Patrão

Illustration workshop Drawing with Eyes Closed, with Inês Viegas Oliveira

16:00
Conversation An Aesthetics for the Future, with Luís Lima and Ricardo Carvalho and moderation by Alexandra Martins

17:00
Concert Small Parts for a Bagpipe under Construction, by Vasco Alves

18:00
Performance Here now, by Catarina Real and Ângelo Cid Neto