Desenhos de JOÃO DOS SANTOS na exposição de Imagined Shared Territories, integrada na programação do pavilhão do Kuwait para a 14ª Bienal de Veneza de Arquitectura. Imagined Shared Territories is the sixth appointment with Freeport, the programme conceived as part of the exhibition Monditalia. The meeting, organized by the Kuwait Pavilion, will take place at the Corderie of the Arsenale on September 12th 2014, from 12 pm to 5 pm, stage B. Historically, the struggle over access to seascape defined boundaries at the northern corner of the Gulf, having a direct effect on logistics and trade around the world. As a natural resource, managing geopolitics of the upper Gulf region was a source of world interest, and often a reason for tension and instability between the port towns on the northeastern side of the Arabian Peninsula. By 2012, a few kilometers away, both countries had laid foundations for long-delayed major port projects; for Mubarak Al Kabeer port in Boubyan Island on the Kuwaiti territory, and the Fao port in Al Fao peninsula south of Basra. Expectations and investments in these territories are vast, yet very limited effort is dedicated to creating a dialogue between societies on both ends, forgetting that the acceptance of these societies to the proposed proximity will be a major factor determining the future that will emerge as a result of the new working conditions. IST, or Imagined Shared Territories, is a research consortium set up to explore conceptual tools, build a database, and form an apparatus to see what is beyond the existing condition. Imagining future Upper Gulf societies and their parameters of interaction depends on making visible a hypothetical physicality and an image to a nation that is yet to come. By tracing the modern history of imagination, data could be provided for the alternative imagined port society, going beyond discontinuities, and mapping intensities and desires of a past and a future for an imagined and shared Upper Gulf. Contributors were invited to respond to the following: How do you imagine the Upper Gulf ? by providing data to help us assemble a potential shared territory. We are in the process of collecting writings, images, archives, drawings, myths, rituals, dreams, lies and hopes that together form the imagined historical lifespan of the Upper Gulf. The Freeport programme, conceived as part of Monditalia, will allow National Participations to match their Pavilions’ presences with a series of live talks, debates and movie projections in the Arsenale’s Corderie. Freeport animates the Arsenale on weekdays, a counterpart to the Weekend Specials calendar, both essential part of the Meetings on Architecture organized by la Biennale di Venezia.
Posted on: Sat, 13 Sep 2014 09:04:43 +0000