MANIFEST, INTERACTIV, EPHEMERAL: AN ORGANIC VIEW
The imperative of practice – ever-present in Ar.Co's concept of education - , makes that certain 'comissioned' projects benefit, instead of compromising the high standards and the good development of school projects. Considering this, the Cinema/Moving Image Department decided to enbrace the Associação Renovar a Mouraria's challenge, which with it's geographic proximity to the school and it's drive to make a difference in the community brought even more interest to the project, considering an 'open door' policy, to which Ar.Co has always been sensible to.
A project/manifest, a work/manifest, that's what was presented to us as a starting point. The unusual circumstances of this arquitectural requalification reside in the ambition of an organic unity. Created from within the community, envolving the locals, imprinting these integration values in the final result.
In synch with the experimental nature of the school program and the specifics of the project, a commited and determined look was desired, capable of reaching beyond the documental record, some type of intense and immersive experience of almost two years. What was required of the participants was that they'd expose themselves to the existing forces and expose them, instead, waiting as a method for a project in constant reconstruction.
This relationship with space, time and the ones that dwell within and around it seemed to us an obvious added value for the Curso de Cinema do Ar.Co.
Marcelo Costa
Department of Cinema/Moving Images
Ar.Co – Centre for Arts and Visual Communication