The Architecture Program of the 5th edition of the Anozero'24 Biennial proposes a reflection on the city, specifically on the Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Nova, which presents particular conditions. Processes are reflections developed throughout the biennial through workshops, actions, exhibitions, publications, conferences, and debates. Santa Clara a Nova forces us to reflect on its history, conservation, materiality, and memory. Still, it must also establish a moment to show other actions developed elsewhere to help set in motion the unique possibilities that we can still find here. That is why a series of architects who have consciously worked in these areas have been selected to show their work and act here with our tools: architects. With them, workshops have been held, drawings and photographs have been made, films and realities have been created, and hidden realities and traces have been discovered...

Using their projects, we will discuss occupation, appropriation, relationship, other uses, consolidation, inaction, emptiness, minimal construction, continued use, and analysis. It is also an occasion to reflect on the necessary materiality that architecture needs, taking advantage of the quarry's existence. We will discuss subtraction, construction, transfer, and permanence in line with this proximity.

If in the Biennial, art curations have mostly occupied built spaces, the Architecture Program is conceived as a process in which all those places outside the built ones that can explain events, confront visions, or establish guidelines for paths that can resignify space are reflected, preserved, and reoccupied. The aim is to facilitate the reading of the whole of what has been built, together with the quarries that made this construction possible and, at the same time, transformed the topography and caused significant alterations. An essential part of what we find in the enclosure of the Santa Clara monastery is a mass of vegetation that has grown with little contact with the outside and has been forgetting paths, which has a logic exposed to the passage of time.

As a plural and welcoming space, Convergent is open to the participation of cultural organisations that enliven Coimbra’s art scene. Artists, collectives, and cultural initiatives were summoned to present their proposals for different urban spaces. Cutting across the themes proposed by Anozero’s curators, the programme is built on the desire to bring the public closer to contemporary art through action and critical thinking.

Zaida García Requejo (Assistant curator)

ADMINISTRATIVE AND FINANCIAL COORDINATION

Zaida García Requejo (Curadoria-adjunta)

COORDENAÇÃO ADMINISTRATIVA E FINANCEIRA

O Anozero’24 thanks the following people

Anozero’24 is grateful to the following companies, galleries and institutions

Centro Artístico, Cultural e Desportivo Adriano Correia de Oliveira

Departamento de Ciências da Vida da Universidade de Coimbra

Museu da Ciência/Universidade de Coimbra

The Modern Institute/Toby Webster Ltd, Glasgow

O Anozero’24 thanks all the volunteers who gave their time and good will to embrace this project

O Anozero’24 thanks the dedication of all those involved in the Converging Programme

APBC (Agência para a promoção da Baixa de Coimbra)

CITAC (Círculo de Iniciação Teatral da Academia de Coimbra)

Sesla (Secção de Escrita e Leitura da Academia de Coimbra)

TEUC (Teatro dos estudantes da Academia de Coimbra)

O Anozero’24 agradece às seguintes pessoas

O Anozero’24 agradece às seguintes empresas, galerias e instituições

O Anozero’24 agradece a todos os voluntários que disponibilizaram o seu tempo e força de vontade para abraçar este projeto

O Anozero’24 agradece a dedicação de todos os envolvidos na Programação Convergente

Gil Mac, Jorge Cabral Carvalho e Fernando Travassos

The Educational Programme creates friction between training and fruition. It elucidates notions addressed by contemporary art and by the curators of Anozero’24: strategic and preparatory concepts for the public’s creative coexistence with the artistic productions in the Biennial’s spaces. The professionals involved in this work use public-artwork-artist-curator mediation in the phases before, during and after the tours. These phases create an environment of affects, collaboration and appreciation of the spectator and their potential to “have something to say”, and to appreciate and enjoy art autonomously, in an exercise of collective knowledge production [linking-integrating-connecting-interconnecting]. Combining art and education, this proposal focuses not only on school communities, but on the territory as a whole, creating a symbolic “crossroads”, an influx of diversity converging into a vigorous Anozero, an event that goes beyond the exhibition of artistic materialities, and aims to transform our societies into otherness-rich liberating coexistences.

 is a title that quotes Luis Buñuel’s well-known 1974 film to question the present moment. We often refer to the “phantom of liberty” to discuss the unattainable that eludes us, a promise that hallucinates reality without fully materialising. In the film’s opening scene, which features Buñuel himself, the characters ironically call out: “Long live the chains!” Liberty, which in the first scene is a political and social freedom, will acquire another meaning: the artist’s or the creator’s liberty, as illusory as the former.

The play between desire and reality, which runs through the construction of liberty, is at a crossroads today, pointing in contradictory directions. Economic inequalities, the purposefulness of capital, the climate emergency and social fractures based on race, religion, gender or sexual orientation expose the fragility of liberty as an expression of the Universal.

Under this title, the biennial proposes a reflection from these different perspectives. Even if we disregard the Universal as a starting point, it is increasingly necessary to think of universalism as a horizon of liberty, understanding that the perpetuation of life can only be that of all lives, human and non-human. In this sense, art is a field of encounter, resistance, participation, rupture, and regenerative imaginative power.

This edition of the Biennial explores the idea of liberty and the strategies of contemporary art to challenge, displace, and inhabit it. The title has an ambiguous and open meaning. If, on the one hand, it suggests the idea that liberty is a phantom, an inescapable and spectral presence, on the other hand, it also points to a postponed process, emphasising the hallucinatory production of a desire. The celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution (1974) is part of this equation, and here we can reflect on its potential for historical imagination, as well as its gridlocks (the eerily fractured echo of one of its slogans, “Peace, bread, housing, health, education”). Similarly, we also seek to evoke another revolution by celebrating the centenary of the 

Like Fantômas — the fictional hero created by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain — hovering over the rooftops of Paris, the phantoms evoked in this Biennial have a poetic value: they seek to hijack historical events from their conventions and crystallised readings, and to provoke suspension and movement, the very qualities of ghosts.

Ángel Calvo Ulloa (Lalín, Pontevedra, 1984) is a curator and writer who lives and works between Galicia and Madrid. Among his recent curatorial projects stand out Habitación. El Archivo F.X., las chekas psicotécnicas de Laurencic y la función del arte, de Pedro G. Romero, exhibited at CA2M (Madrid), MNAC (Barcelona), and La Nau (Valencia); Autoconstrucción. Piezas sueltas. Juego y experiencia, de Antonio Ballester Moreno, showcased at Artium (Vitoria-Gasteiz); Siron Franco: Pensamento insubordinado (Trabalhos, 1961-2023), presented at MAC Goiás (Brazil); Complexo Colosso at CIAJG (Guimarães); and Anidar en el gesto: unas estanterías de Alberto at Fundación Cerezales Antonio y Cinia (Cerezales del Condado, León). Since 2011, Ángel Calvo Ulloa has also curated exhibitions at institutions such as La Casa Encendida (Madrid), Caixaforum (Barcelona), MARCO (Vigo), CCEMx (Ciudad de México), Fundación Luis Seoane (A Coruña), Tabacalera (Madrid), Centro Párraga (Murcia), and EACC (Castellón), among others. In 2020, he co-authored, with Juan Canela, the book Desde lo curatorial. Conversaciones, experiencias y afectos, published by Consonni in its Colección Paper.

Ángel Calvo Ulloa (Lalín, Pontevedra, 1984) é curador e escritor. Vive e trabalha entre Galiza e Madrid. Entre os seus recentes projetos curatoriais, destacam-se: 

Habitación. El Archivo F.X., las chekas psicotécnicas de Laurencic y la función del arte, 

de Pedro G. Romero, exibido no CA2M (Madrid), MNAC (Barcelona) e La Nau (Valência); 

Autoconstrucción. Piezas sueltas. Juego y experiencia

, de Antonio Ballester Moren, apresentado no Artium (Vitoria-Gasteiz); 

Siron Franco: Pensamento insubordinado (Trabalhos, 1961–2023)

, exposto no Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Goiás (Brasil); 

Anidar en el gesto: unas estanterías de Alberto

, na Fundación Cerezales Antonio y Cinia (Cerezales del Condado, León). Desde 2011, Ángel Calvo Ulloa também comissariou exposições em instituições como La Casa Encendida (Madrid), Caixaforum (Barcelona), MARCO (Vigo), CCEMx (Cidade do México), Fundación Luis Seoane (A Coruña), Tabacalera (Madrid), Centro Párraga (Murcia) e EACC (Castellón), entre outras. Em 2020, em coautoria com Juan Canela, publicou o livro 

, como parte da Colección Paper, de Consonni.

Paula Nascimento (Luanda, 1981) is an architect and independent curator who lives and works in Luanda. She founded Beyond Entropy Africa, a research studio focusing on architecture and urbanism, visual arts and geopolitics. She was responsible for the award- winning 1 st Angolan Pavilion at the 55 th International Art Exhibition — Venice Biennale (2013).
  

As an independent curator, she has worked on interdisciplinary projects, exploring themes linked to post-colonial cities and contemporary readings of historical themes. She has curated several exhibitions in Angola, South Africa, Portugal and Italy and participated in Experimenta Design, the Milan Triennale, the Bamako Biennale and the 6th Lubumbashi Biennale.
  

She is currently president of the Artistic Committee of the Nesr Art Foundation and a member of the Advisory Board of Hangar – Centro de Investigação Artística. She curated the ARE YOU FOR REAL platform between 2019 and 2022 and was part of the curatorial team for the 7 th and 8 th editions of the Lubumbashi Biennale. Since 2019, she has been the curator of Africa Focus at Arco Lisboa.

Paula Nascimento (Luanda, 1981) é arquiteta e curadora independente. Vive e trabalha em Luanda. É fundadora da Beyond Entropy África, estúdio de investigação que se debruça sobre os campos da arquitetura e do urbanismo, das artes visuais e da geopolítica. Foi responsável pelo premiado 1.º Pavilhão de Angola na 55.ª Exposição Internacional de Artes – Bienal de Veneza (2013).
  

Como curadora independente, tem trabalhado em projetos interdisciplinares, explorando temáticas ligadas às cidades pós-coloniais e leituras contemporâneas para temas históricos. É curadora de várias exposições em Angola, África do Sul, Portugal, Itália, e participou na Experimenta Design, Trienal de Milão, Bienal de Bamako e na 6.ª Bienal de Lubumbashi.
  

Atualmente, é presidente do Comité Artístico da Nesr Art Foundation e membro do Conselho Consultivo do Hangar – Centro de Investigação Artística. Foi curadora da plataforma ARE YOU FOR REAL, entre 2019 e 2022, e integrou a equipa curatorial da 7.ª e 8.ª edições da Bienal de Lubumbashi. Desde 2019, é curadora do África Focus na Arco Lisboa.

João Fernandes (Bragança, 1964) has been artistic director at the Moreira Salles Institute since 2019. He was deputy director of Conservation, Research and Dissemination for six years at the Reina Sofia National Art Centre Museum. Between 1996 and 2002, he worked as a curator at the Serralves Museum, and later, between 2003 and 2012, he was the museum’s director. He was commissioner for the Portuguese representation at the 1 st Johannesburg Biennale (1995), the 24th São Paulo Art Biennale (2003) and, together with Vicente Todolí, the 50 th Venice Biennale (2003).

João Fernandes studied at the University of Porto, majoring in Modern Languages and Literatures. In the same city, he began his career in the arts and organised the Porto Contemporary Art Days between 1992 and 1996.

João Fernandes (Bragança, 1964) é diretor artístico no Instituto Moreira Salles desde 2019. Ao longo de seis anos, foi subdiretor de Conservação, Investigação e Difusão do Museu Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. Entre 1996 e 2002, trabalhou como curador no Museu de Serralves, e, posteriormente, entre 2003 e 2012, exerceu o cargo de diretor do museu. Foi comissário para a representação portuguesa na 1.ª Bienal de Joanesburgo (1995), na 24.ª Bienal de Arte de São Paulo (2003) e, juntamente com Vicente Todolí, na 50.ª Bienal de Veneza (2003).
  

João Fernandes realizou a sua formação académica na Universidade do Porto, na licenciatura de Línguas e Literaturas Modernas. Na mesma cidade, iniciou o seu percurso no meio artístico e organizou as Jornadas de Arte Contemporânea do Porto, entre 1992 e 1996.

Paula Ferreira (São Paulo, Brazil, 1993) is a writer and independent researcher currently living in Lisbon. She received her academic education at the University of Lisbon, studying Photography, and at the NOVA University, studying Aesthetics.

In 2022, she founded the transdisciplinary project "Aos Cuidados,", which focuses on creating spaces for discussion on issues related to rights and access to care. She works as curator and editor in its various cultural initiatives, including printed publications, exhibitions, film cycles, amongst others. In 2023, she curated the exhibition "Bandeira Branca" at the Irmã Feia gallery in Almada. Paula Ferreira regularly contributes as a writer to the magazine Contemporânea.

Paula Ferreira (São Paulo, 1993) é escritora e investigadora independente. Atualmente, vive em Lisboa. Tem formação em Fotografia, pela Faculdade de Belas-Artes da Universidade de Lisboa, e em Estética, pela Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa.
  

Em 2022, fundou o projeto transdisciplinar «Aos Cuidados», cujo objetivo se centra na criação de espaços para o debate de questões relacionadas com o direito e acesso às redes de cuidado — através de publicações impressas, exposições, ciclos de cinema e outras iniciativas culturais. Atua no projeto enquanto editora e curadora. Em 2023, foi curadora da exposição 

, na galeria Irmã Feia, em Almada. Tem contribuído regularmente como escritora para a revista 

Marta Mestre (Beja, 1980) is a contemporary art curator and researcher working in Brazil and Portugal. She holds a degree in Art History. Currently, she serves as the artistic director of the Centro Internacional José de Guimarães – CIAJG in Guimarães. She is coordinating Heteróclitos: 1128 objetos, a post-ethnographic research on the collection, and a exhibition program featuring artists such as Artur Barrio, Fernão Cruz, Priscila Fernandes, Yonamine, Rodrigo Hernández, amongst others. In Brazil, where she lived for several years, she worked as a curator at the Instituto Inhotim in Minas Gerais, assistant curator at the Museum of Modern Art, and guest curator at the Escola de Arte Parque Lage, both in Rio de Janeiro. She frequently writes about artists’ work, serves as a consultant for cultural projects, and currently sits on the acquisitions committee of the Centro de Arte Moderna (F. C. Gulbenkian, Lisbon). As a curator or co-curator, Marta Mestre has organized exhibitions at Instituto Inhotim (Minas Gerais), MAM-Rio (Rio de Janeiro), Museu Berardo (Lisbon), Galerias Municipais (Lisbon), Museu Oscar Niemeyer (Curitiba), Fundação Iberê Camargo (Porto Alegre), SESC- Pompéia (São Paulo), S.M.A.K. (Ghent), amongst others. As a lecturer, she teaches at universities, public programs, and independent courses. She is a member of CIMAM – International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art.

Marta Mestre (Beja, 1980) é curadora e investigadora em arte contemporânea, e tem atuado no Brasil e em Portugal. É formada em História da Arte. Atualmente, é diretora artística do Centro Internacional José de Guimarães — CIAJG, em Guimarães, coordenando 

, uma pesquisa pós-etnográfica sobre a coleção, e o programa de exposições com Artur Barrio, Fernão Cruz, Priscila Fernandes, Yonamine, Rodrigo Hernández, entre outros. No Brasil, onde viveu durante vários anos, foi curadora no Instituto Inhotim, em Minas Gerais, curadora assistente no Museu de Arte Moderna e curadora convidada na Escola de Arte Parque Lage, ambos no Rio de Janeiro. Escreve frequentemente sobre o trabalho de artistas, é consultora de projetos culturais e integra, atualmente, o comité de aquisições do Centro de Arte Moderna (F. C. Gulbenkian, Lisboa). Como curadora ou co-curadora, Marta Mestre organizou exposições no Instituto Inhotim (Minas Gerais), no MAM—Rio (Rio de Janeiro), no Museu Berardo (Lisboa), nas Galerias Municipais (Lisboa), no Museu Oscar Niemeyer (Curitiba), na Fundação Iberê Camargo (Porto Alegre), no SESC — Pompéia (São Paulo), no S.M.A.K. (Gante), entre outros. Como conferencista leciona em universidades, programas públicos e cursos independentes. É membro do CIMAM — Comité Internacional de Museus e Coleções de Arte Moderna.

About AnoZero

The Phantom of Liberty

The Phantom of Liberty is a title that challenges the present moment, in addition to citing the well-known film by Luis Buñuel, made in 1974. We often refer to the “phantom of liberty” to talk about the unattainable…

Introduction

Curatorial Team

Convergent Program

Education Proposal

Architecture Program

Technical Sheet

Acknowledgments

Endorsements & Partners