Performing Building Sites
Performing Building Sites — Curating in/on/through space is my academic dissertation awarded the PhD degree in Curatorial/Knowledge from Goldsmiths College, University of London, August 2014.
Title
PERFORMING BUILDING SITES
Curating in/on/through space
Author
Maria Inês da Silva Antunes Moreira
PhD dissertation in Curatorial Knowledge
Visual Cultures Department
Supervisor
Professor Irit Rogoff
Scholarship supervisor
Professor Paulo Cunha e Silva
ABSTRACT
Performing Building Sites is the formulation of one of many possible critical strategies for curating. Performing Building Sites are approached as subject, site, and/or metaphor, proposing an understanding of architecture and construction as processual and hybrid fields of material and spatial practice. The project aims to explore methods for curatorial analysis and intervention on space, spanning from theoretical to practice oriented approaches. The Thesis is developed as both an academic research and as a curatorial project, extending the new research field of Curatorial Knowledge.
The curator is proposed as a field practitioner, studying and intervening in existing spaces, and, sometimes, creating space. Central to this argument are theoretical and empirical knowings acquired through fieldwork. Situating the curator in space, producing research on spaces, suggests an implicated position for curating, and researching: in/on/through space.
The academic research closely articulates with questions from a personal body of work developed by the author along a decade as an architect/researcher/curator. The images accompanying the study are (mostly) originals generated from fieldwork by the author and partners. Mostly set for curators, researchers and other spatial practitioners.
Key words
Curatorial studies, visual cultures, curating architecture, curatorial/knowledge