After a year of reflection in the context of preparing four workshops (1. ROTATIONS; 2. TRANSFORMATIONS; 3. MOVEMENTS; 4. POLICIES) on the landscape as an object of investigation and as a space in which the activities and thoughts of societies develop Over the course of human time, in which different members of Lab2PT and IN2PAST participated, as well as other invited external researchers, the international congress “Uncertain Landscapes. Beyond transdisciplinary approaches”. This was carried out by Lab2PT with the support of IN2PAST (LA/P/0132/2020 – DOI 10.54499/LA/P/0132/2020) and took place in Guimarães, on the 22nd, 23rd and 24th of November 2023.

The congress approached landscape as a conceptual instrument to rethink our way of being in the world, to break disciplinary boundaries in the search for answers to current problems, in the relationship between human beings and the spaces they inhabit, as well as an instrument for construction of a diversified future, based on knowledge of the past, and fluid between the permeability of the territory and respect for the environment.

 

We are now publishing on video the six plenary lectures given by keynotes Paola Viganò, Cooking Sections, Álvaro Domingues, Felipe Criado-Boado, Irene Kopelman, Francesco Careri, and the debate between Felipe Criado-Boado and Irene Kopelman with Lauro Olmo and Ana Moya. These will be released weekly, on Fridays, between June 21st and July 26th, 2024.

 

 

Lecture by Paola Viganò: HERE

Architect and urbanist, is Full Professor in Urban Theory and Urban Design at the EPFL (CH) (where she directs the Habitat Research Center and the Lab-U) and at IUAV Venice (IT). She received the Grand Prix de l’Urbanisme in 2013, the title of Doctor Honoris Causa by the UCLouvain in 2016 in the frame of “Utopia for our Time”, the Flemish Culture Award for Architecture in 2017, and the Golden medal to the career of Milano Triennale in 2018. Together with Bernardo Secchi, she founded Studio (1990-2014) working on numerous projects and visions in Europe. Since 2015, StudioPaolaViganò works on the ecological and social transition of cities, landscapes and territories designing urban and territorial projects and realizing public spaces in Europe as the new public park in Dessel Nuclear Research center (Belgium), or Marie Janson Plein in Brussels, together with VVV. Studio has also recently won the competition for the realization of the municipal plan (PdCom) of Lugano (Switzerland) and is consultant of the City of Geneva for its municipal plan (PdCom). Studio is finally coordinating the Strategic Scheme for the recovery of the Vesdre Valley (Belgium) after the flooding catastrophe of 2021 summer.
In 2019, her work has been exhibited at the Shenzen Biennale and in 2021 at the Venice Biennale.
In 2022, she receives the Schelling Prize for Architectural Theory.

 

Lecture by Cooking Sections : HERE

Cooking Sections examine the systems that organise the world through food. Using site-responsive installation, performance and video, they explore the overlapping boundaries between art, architecture, ecology and geopolitics. Established in London in 2013 by Daniel Fernández Pascual and Alon Schwabe, their practice uses food as a lens and a tool to observe landscapes in transformation. Part of the British Art Show 9, they were guest professors at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich in 2020-21. They are senior researchers and principal investigators at CLIMAVORE x Jameel at the Royal College of Art in London.

 

Lecture by Álvaro Domingues: HERE

Álvaro Domingues is a geographer, PhD in Human Geography from FLUP, and Associate Professor at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto, in the integrated master’s and doctorate courses. He is also a Researcher at CEAU-FAUP, Center for Architecture and Urbanism Studies at FAUP. Since July 2021, he has been a Corresponding Member of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences. Among his recent publications, the following stand out: “Paisagem Portuguesa, Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos, Lisbon 2022 (with Duarte Belo); “Portugal Possível”, Museu da Paisagem, Lisbon 2022 (with Duarte Belo and Rui Lage); “Transgenic Landscapes” , Museu da Paisagem, Lisbon 2021; “Volta a Portugal”, Bertrand edition, Lisbon 2017; “Vida no Campo”, Ed. Dafne, Porto 2012 and “A Rua da Estrada”, Ed.Dafne, Porto 2010.

 

Lecture by Felipe Criado-Boado: HERE

His main interest has always been the study of space. Everything else, came from there.
Between 1980 and 1990, he studied megalithism, the origins of monumental architecture and landscape archaeology and between 1991 and 2000, developed a theoretical framework of cultural landscapes models and a theory of archaeological visibility, besides an early move towards the cultural heritage and a first approach to the cultural heritage value chain.
Between 2001 and 2010, he delve into an archaeology of space and developed an interpretive method to sustain the production of archaeological meaning. Gradually, he came more engaged with community archaeology and studied the different modes of scientific practice. In 2001 he moved to CSIC but still keeping a basis in the USC. Between 2003-2008 he was director of the CSIC section of Human and Social Sciences.
Between 2011 and 2020, he proposed the “xscape” concept to explain the formal regularities in the different dimensions of past human landscapes, embraced a soft model of science for Humanities and Heritage and turned towards cognitive science. This went hand to hand with a holistic and critical approach to cultural heritage and the query about heritagization processes. In 2010 INCIPIT is created and Felipe Criado-Boado is named its first director. Between 2009 and 2013 was head of the Area of Science and Society of CYTED (the Program of Science and Technology for Development funded by the Latin-American conference of Presidents), and assistant of the Spanish State Secretary of Research. Between 2015 to 2021 he was President of the EAA (the European Association of Archaeologists) and in 2021, he has got an ERC SyG project (acronym XSCAPE) on “Material Minds: Exploring the Interactions between Predictive Brains, Cultural Artefacts, and Embodied Visual Search”.

 

Lecture by Irene Kopelman: HERE

She studied at the School of Arts of the National University of Córdoba. In 2002/2003, Kopelman completed the International Residency program at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam.
During the first years after her studies, she made different collaborations in the collections of museums such as the Geological Museum (Artis, Amsterdam); the Entomological Collection (University of Amsterdam – UvA); the Teylers Museum (Haarlem); the Natural History Museum in London and the Astronomical Observatory in Córdoba (Argentina). Subsequently, she became curious about the process of personally confronting the landscape through projects linked to lava fields, in the Hawaiian national park or the Antarctic landscape. This process led her to become interested in the processes that make up these landscapes, approaching to understanding them and the analysis of scientific methodologies in very diverse institutions such as the Manu Learning Center, Madre de Dios, Peru; Sabah Parks from Malaysia, from the Netherlands Center for Natural Biodiversity (NCB); the STRI (Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute) in Panama; the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) or the Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research (SLF), among others.
Irene Kopelman’s work is based on a long-term commitment to ecological issues and an interest in the parallels between the practices of science and art. Finding points of convergence between the two fields is one of the focal points of her work. Ecological concerns are intertwined with her strong belief in drawing as a tool for understanding.

 

Debate between Felipe Criado-Boado and Irene Kopelman with Lauro Olmo and Ana Moya: HERE

 

Lecture by Francesco Careri: HERE

Associate Professor at the Department of Architecture of Roma Tre University, where is Director of the Master Environmental Humanities and of the Master Performing Arts and Community Spaces. In 1995 he co-founded the urban art laboratory Stalker, which consists of architects, artists, activists and researchers working experimentally and engaging in actions to create self-organised spaces and situations. With Stalker he develops the method of collective walking in the ‘actual territories’, the indeterminate or void spaces of the city, which have long been disregarded or considered a problem in traditional architectural practice. From 2009 to 2015 he is Director of the LAC Laboratory of Civic Arts of the University Roma Tre with which he realizes Terza Missione/Public Engagement projects such as Savorengo Ker-la casa di tutti in the Roma Camp Casilino 900. Since 2017 he is scientific responsible together with Prof. Fabrizio Finucci of the research group Laboratorio Circo and together with Prof Giovanni Caudo of the Laboratorio di Città Corviale with which he realizes urban regeneration projects.