MUTANTS — between the theatre and the museum
#1. Most mutations are invisible
#2. The same mutation can reappear periodically
#3. Mutations are always sudden and unforeseen changes to inherited material
Promoted by BoCA – Biennial of Contemporary Arts, in partnership with CCB and MAC/CCB, Mutants — between the theatre and the museum is a participatory project that aims to bring together a community of people to explore transdisciplinarity as a space for thought, practice and a tool for collective cultural construction.
It focuses on the dialogue between the stage and the museum as artistic instances configured by devices that aggregate strategies for making things seen. Rather than addressing the discourses and practices of various artistic genres, the aim is to explore and question the contamination between them, questioning the urgency of change, transformation, readaptation, variation and transmutation.
It is driven by the recognition of the paradigm of the device, both in the performing arts and in exhibition contexts, and aims to look at the places of art by questioning the ways in which they are made. It thus questions the performative dimension of places and things, between the stage arts and the plastic arts, analysing the particularities in common but also provoking formats that exceed them.
Mutants is inspired by the potential of (de)formation, genetic hybridism (between one thing and another), here between the stage and the exhibition rooms, and the crossing of source materials (sets of parts of other sets), here seeking to disorganise genres, essences, roots, identities and places, immersing itself in the speculation of new artistic paradigms.
It’s a project open to anyone aged 21 or over with an interest in the arts in general, in meeting other people with interests in the interdisciplinary field and anyone who likes to share references, ask questions and, above all, integrate meeting processes and collective practices.
Objectives and wishes
1. To create a space for sharing, reflection and experience, lived in community, which is not necessarily the result of an aggregation of common backgrounds and artistic objectives, but rather of complementary areas, where the encounter is stimulated by the power of the encounter and the intuition of the collective is valued as a way of overcoming individual universes.
2. To promote a learning space that is cross-sectoral in nature at various levels. At the level of the intersection of disciplinary territories, ensuring, for example, that participants have training in different areas; at the level of the content and methodologies covered, which cut across different areas of study, also ensured by the diversity of guests; and at the level of the experiences in order to bring together the interest of different ages and contexts of the participants.
3. To channel collective practice and thought into actions, objects or other devices for mediating the project experience. These materialisations, the result of the questions raised throughout the programme, will be forms of language between the group and perhaps also outside. They could be traces of performances, experiments in playing with objects, videos and their own contexts, excerpts from conferences or informal installations, whether posters, images or flags. This dimension is also a way of questioning the devices of publication, communication and the dynamisation of places of art.
Part I – Close encounters of first kind
4 Sessions for initial exploration of content, provocations, group creation and the development of multiple practices (writing, expanded drawing, body, recording, spatial manipulation and object collections).
Part II – Close encounters of second kind
6 Sessions: 3 sessions with 3 different artists, interspersed with another 3 sessions with Sara Franqueira, to build bridges between the artists’ sessions, part I of the project and possible final actions in part III.
Part III – Close encounters of third kind
2 Sessions of an admittedly unfinished conclusion, gathering ideas and dimensions that have been uncovered or are of future interest and a possible collective performance proposal that mirrors the group’s process.
Dates | 12 sessions:
14 Sep and 15 Sep (Sat. and Sun.), 21 Sep (Sat.), 28 Sep (Sat.)
5 Oct (Sat), 19 Oct (Sat)
2 Nov (Sat), 23 Nov (Sat), 30 Nov (Sat)
7 Dec (Sat), 14 Dec and 15 Dec (Sat and Sun)
Duration: always from 10:30am to 1:30pm
Venue: Belém Cultural Centre / Museum of Contemporary Art – MAC/CCB (Lisbon)
Registration: Fill in this form by 02/09/2024.
Participation is free of charge.
In the 1st edition of the project, in 2022, the group met between March and June in different cultural spaces – theatres, museums and art centres – in the greater Lisbon area (Casa da Cerca, Culturgest, MAAT, Berardo Museum, Bairro Alto Theatre and Dona Maria II National Theatre), collecting genetic material for their mutations. The months of work, exploration and artistic discussion culminated in the public presentation of the performance ‘200 Perguntas a cada’ on 18 June at the Dona Maria II National Theatre.
