To curate. An action, an ancestral community practice, a process, a place of care, attention, listening and gestures. To curate an exhibition, in a quasi-dystopian year, in which our perception of reality and normality has been altered by a global pandemic caused by a virus, is, at the same time, an absurd and ironic exercise of inscription and re-signification of that which is real.
In a year of uncertainty, in which the perspective of present-future appeared to be a mirage, in a suspended space-time, reflecting on Porto’s artistic activity was, not just a challenge, but a necessary provocation, that allowed us to observe the breathing – sometimes silent, sometimes energetic – of artists, creators and agents, during a time of reinvention and resistance.
Assumimos como premissa, num gesto atento a essa conjuntura, two ideas that span the curatorial programme and thinking: solidarity and colletive.
Listening to and recognising the city and its artistic community, at a time of profound difficulties for the sector, highlights the fragile and vulnerable character of its structures – which have been paradoxically stoic in terms of their resilience and flexibility in the face of adversity.
Sensitive to the context, we have reestablished and remodeled the focus of the locus, to an exhibition presented in various places, thus creating a network between various independent structures e uma condição de fazer, que se alberga numa tipologia de espaços que não eram os seus – lojas que se transformam em espaços de trabalho e, ao mesmo tempo, em lugares de mostra de arte.
The 2020 edition of Anuário is presented without any apparent order, in a regime that invites wandering and discovery, creating unlikely relationships that reflect the intersections of the distinct experiences and voices that inhabit the city and are expanded through the mixing and confrontation of others, arising from multiple contexts and geographies.
It matters to think about artistic practice in the city, starting with a comprehensive and attentive view of all the agents who belong to the different communities, in order to gather and reconfigure a set of works that represents the local diversity, thereby drawing one line, among many possible lines.