Corpographies Reimagined: dialogue with/against the archive of the 1st Portuguese Colonial Exhibition

Corpographies can be cartographies with/of the body in/of spaces. It’s a concept created to establish connections between the scales of the body and the city, which can manifest themselves in various formats.

The Crystal Palace Gardens reveal a memory space that bears the marks and reminiscences of Portuguese colonial history. In this workshop, we propose to analyse this relationship – that of space-memory – by tensing our bodies with the archive of the First Portuguese Colonial Exhibition, with the aim of examining the presences and absences that permeate both the Gardens of Palácio de Cristal and the city’s public space, constantly updating colonial thinking.

We invite participants to compose Reimagined Corpographies through the production of a fanzine, encouraging reflection on the past and questioning reparative gestures that imagine possibilities for fairer, more plural and horizontal futures.

Marcela Pedersen, born in Rio Claro, in the interior of São Paulo (Brazil), currently lives in Porto. An educator and researcher in Art Education, she is a member of the Institute for Research in Art, Design and Society (i2ADS). She is currently studying for a PhD in Art Education at FBAUP. Her research interests and practices question the possibilities of mediation and education practices allied to anti-racist, anti-discriminatory, anti-colonial and critical struggles against whiteness.

Rafael Campos has a master’s degree in architecture and is a Brazilian performer and researcher who, in his professional life, moves between artistic and academic circles. He currently lives in Porto, where he is doing a PhD in art education at FBAUP and a PhD in architecture at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC). He has an FCT scholarship in Portugal, is a collaborating researcher at the Institute for Research in Art and Design (i2ADS) and is a member of the Quiasma Group for interdisciplinary research into Architecture, the Body and the City.

Photography: Sérgio Monteiro