Affective Utopia

KADIST invites Mónica de Miranda and Bruno Leitão, founders and directors of Hangar, an artistic research center located in Graça, Lisbon, for an art-space residency and exhibition.

With: Sammy Baloji & Filip De Boeck, Luis Camnitzer, Ângela Ferreira, Alfredo Jaar, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Grada Kilomba, Reynier Leyva Novo and Paulo Nazareth*

Developed over three chapters, the exhibition Affective Utopia will approach questions and challenges relative to the production of knowledge in the arts and curatorial practices: a reflection on the tensions and conflicts generated by South/North issues, geographic divisions, cultural assimilation and the urgent need for decolonization of thought in curatorial processes and artistic production.

The artists in this exhibition discuss the different ways of thinking and performing utopia in contemporary art from a broad range of angles. The concept of utopia entails two related but contradictory perceptions: the aspiration to a better world, and the acknowledgement that its form may only ever live in our imaginations through the artists’ fictional reconstructions of reality. Affective Utopia reflects this general ambivalence, but it also poses the question of how art can be a tool for critical reflection of one’s own socialization process and to one´s connections to affective geographic concepts of belonging, origin and diaspora.

The purpose of the art-space residency is to experiment with delocalizing context relevant practices in order to offer new perspectives on discussions happening in Paris, and internationally.

Hangar in Lisbon produces exhibitions as spaces of action for public engagement beyond spectatorship and through strategies that produce sociality.

Delocalized at KADIST during the time of this exhibition, Bruno Leitão and Mónica de Miranda’s project will reframe this approach towards public engagement in another context and towards another audience.

Hangar is comprised of a center of exhibitions, artistic residencies, and artistic studies. It is also a center of education, talks and conversations that unify geographic locations and stimulate the development of artistic and theoretical practices. It seeks to organize and produce the development of artistic inter-disciplinary projects and visual arts projects that focus on Lisbon as a central backdrop for contemporary culture. Hangar’s artistic program is focused on South/North problematics, taking from the specific position that Lisbon occupies both geographically as well historically.

*The artists in the exhibition have all worked with Hangar in Lisbon through residencies, talks or exhibitions.

Opening reception: Friday, February 8, 2019, 6–9 pm
First chapter: Concrete Utopia February 8 — March 3
With works by Sammy Baloji & Filip De Boeck, Ângela Ferreira and Kiluanji Kia Henda
February 26, 7pm
Talk by Sammy Baloji & Filip De Boeck

Second chapter: Art as a Critical Tool
March 7 — March 24
With works by Luis Camnitzer, Alfredo Jaar and Reynier Leyva Novo
March 7, 7pm
Talk by Luis Camnitzer

Third chapter: The Body as a Political ToolApril 4 — April 21
With works by Grada Kilomba and Paulo Nazareth
April 12, 7pm
Grada Kilomba in conversation with Paul Goodwin

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www.kadist.org