Luanda, Encyclopedic City
New entry amongst the national pavilions at the coming Venice Biennale is the Pavilion of the Republic of Angola.
Luanda, Encyclopedic City presents works of young artist Edson Chagas.
Curated by Paula Nascimento and Stefano Rabolli Pansera (Beyond Entropy Ltd)
The Encyclopedic Palace has been given an impossible task: no
building can contain a universal multiplicity of spaces, possibilities, and
objects. When a building tends towards the encyclopedic, it becomes a city. The
city includes multiple conditions in the coherence of form— even though this is
an urban, conflict-ridden form.
Edson Chagas focuses on the complexity of Angola’s capital, Luanda, which
derives from the presence of unpredictable spaces and the coexistence of
irreconcilable programs: city and country, infrastructure and habitations, garbage
tips and public spaces. Luanda is an encyclopedic city. How can the knowledge
of a city be organized through the taxonomy of its spaces?
Central to Edson Chagas’ work is a reflection on the ways in which
images are used to give form to the way the city is experienced. Edson Chagas’s
Found Not Taken series
concentrates on the systematic cataloguing of abandoned objects that are
repositioned within an urban context to create new relationships between the
objects and their context, form and its codification. What relationship is
created between spaces and their images? What role are imagination and
creativity allowed to play in this urban taxonomy? In the ambiguity of a vision
which uncovers and nonetheless reconstructs, what is delineated is an urban
cartography mixing documentary-like precision and poetic reconstruction: a new
way of observing the encyclopedic wealth of spaces around us and, perhaps, a
new way of inhabiting these spaces.
Luanda,
Encyclopedic City is an installation composed of 23 large-format photographic
posters open to the interaction with the public, invited to reflect on the
theme of the Encyclopedic Palace also through the ability to create their own
personal urban encyclopedia of Luanda, in a stimulated comparison with the
collection of ancient works owned by Vittorio Cini, exhibited in the Galleria of Palazzo Cini.
Pavilion of the Republic of Angola at the
55th International Art Exhibition- la Biennale di
Venezia
Luanda,
Encyclopedic City
Curated by Paula Nascimento and Stefano Rabolli Pansera
Palazzo Cini in San Vio, Dorsoduro 864 Venezia
Press Preview 29, 30, 31 May h.10am – 7pm
Vernissage Thursday the 30th
of May from 6pm to 10pm. Entrance with registration
Opening time 1 June - 24
November 2013, Tuesday - Sunday 2pm -7pm, free entrance.
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work by Edson Chagas, Found
Not Taken; Luanda, Encyclopedic City.
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Edson Chagas
Edson Chagas was born in
Luanda, Angola in 1977. After a degree in photojournalism at the London College
of Communication, Chagas studied photo-documentary at the University of
Newport. Since 2007 the artist lives and works in Luanda, where he developed
his personal work as a photojournalist beyond the standard of this practice.
His debut at the 55th
International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia is the result of a
recognized international activity after taking part in exhibitions and projects
all over the world. In 2011 Edson Chagas has participated in Luanda Triennial
2010, SP-Arte and SOSO Gallery in Sao Paulo, and into the workshop organized in
Ethiopia by GIZ - Deutsche Gesellshaft fur Internatonale Zusammenarbeit – which
culminated in a travelling exhibition from the National Museum of Ethiopia in
Addis Ababa to the Rheinishes Landesmuseum of Bonn, Germany. In 2012 he took part in MABAXA Project
based in Luanda, and into the RAVY festival - Rencontre d’Arts Visuels – in
Yaoundé, Cameroon. In 2013 he exhibited in the collective show NO FLY ZONE at
the Berardo Museum at CCB in Lisbon, and his works have been displayed in “Landscape” exhibit
at A Palazzo Gallery in Brescia, Italy.
Paula Nascimento, Director, Beyond Entropy
Angola
She currently lives and
works in Angola, in Luanda. She graduated from Southbank University and from
Architectural Association in London. She worked for Alvaro Siza Architects and
RDA and is a consultant for
COBA Consultores de Energia e Ambiente. Since 2011 she is director of Beyond
Entropy Africa. With Stefano Rabolli
Pansera has curated the Angola Pavilion at the
13th International Architecture Exhibition - la Biennale di Venezia.
Stefano Rabolli
Pansera, Director Beyond Entropy Ltd.
After working with Herzog
and de Meuron between 2005 and 2007, he taught as Unit Master at the
Architectural Association from 2007 to 2011. He has lectured in the
Universities of Cagliari, Cambridge, Naples, Wuhan, Seoul and Madrid. In 2010
he founded Beyond Enropy Ltd. which operates in Europe, the Mediterranean and
Africa. Since 2012 he is director of the Museum of Contemporary Art of
Calasetta and of Mangiabarche Gallery in Sardinia. With Paula Nascimento has curated the Angola Pavilion at the 13th
International Architecture Exhibition - la Biennale di Venezia.
Beyond Entropy Ltd
Beyond Entropy is
an agency for urban and architectural production that focuses on the concept of
energy as its main tool for the design of innovative spaces. Beyond Entropy is a
method: both an analytical method for understanding the space we live in (our
cities, landscapes and territories) and an operational strategy that opens new
paradigms for the design, creation and management of alternative forms of urban
and architectural design.
Beyond Entropy operates on a
global scale in situations of crisis such as urban sprawl, desert islands (as
Calasetta in Sardinia), overpopulated cities in emerging countries (such as
Angola), protected areas, historic city centers.
Beyond Entropy develops
projects beyond the rhetoric of sustainability and formulates proposals where
theoretical research and architectural product converge towards a proposal
drawn up.
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