Initially conceived for a large, neutral room at Manifesta7 in 2008, Meg Stuart’s video installation is now recontextualized in the Capela das Albertas, inside the National Museum of Ancient Art in Lisbon. The Capela das Albertas was the church of the Convento de Santo Alberto, a Carmelite convent for women founded in the late 16th century, which few people are likely to remember. The space has been closed and is in need of restoration, and will be reopened exclusively and temporarily for this work by Meg Stuart.

Meg Stuart exposes herself. A human face in a space of hyper-human representation. The real exposed in a place of representation. Stuart looks us straight in the eye, without artifice, with the determination of someone who is speaking to us, but her gaze falters to the point where we can guess a question: are we looking at Stuart or is Stuart looking at us?

We look at Meg Stuart. And in her face, we see not only the simple exposure of appearance, of what is in front of the head or what surrounds it, that is, her face is not understood in its plastic, aesthetic, or psychological sense. It reveals otherness.

Meg Stuart looks at us. And in this gesture, there is an imposition, giving an order and asking for mercy, as Emmanuel Lévinas tells us: “the face of the Other reminds us of the obligations of the ‘I’.” We are led to take responsibility for those who look at us, there, in the midst of darkness.

The face of Meg Stuart, a female entity within this chapel that was once inhabited only by women in seclusion, brings us the counterpoint of the speed of a city and an experienced, well-traveled, and free body. In this place of refuge, mystery, and silence, we see a face, we see a human being, we see a woman, we see a dancer and a choreographer. Meg Stuart’s face is not on the plane of representation. It occupies the space.