Description

14 September - 9:00AM - 15:00PM

The Image Conference is offering delegates an immersive experience to deeply consider place and host city. We see this as an opportunity for collaborative co-production, bringing together our delegates' diverse visual spaces and research foci. We take our lead from Marc Augé, who offers a frame to interpret “place" within a specific kind of anthropological lens. He argues “place” offers a dynamic between a " principle of meaning for those who inhabit it and the principle of intelligibility for those who observe it" (Augé, 2005: 51). In this spirit, we will spend the day thinking about, capturing, and sharing the experience of this process – to produce a catalog of experience.

Context: Framing the Identity of the City

Lisbon offers us a long and rich history to explore the production of urban identity and its communication modes.

PEOPLE AND IDEAS

The flow of people and ideas has profoundly shaped the city’s identity. From the 12th Century, Lisbon became the departure point for ships and caravels that discovered a "new world"; a mercantile center where spices from the Orient were traded and arrived; a place where distant and different peoples, cultures, and knowledge presented themselves. This mix of people and ideas forged a sense of plurality that still characterizes the cosmopolitan life of Lisbon today. An approach to unity in diversity defines this history and is reflected in the coexistence of new and old ideas in resonance and distinction from this past.

GEOGRAPHY AND LANDSCAPE

Lisbon is also profoundly shaped by its geography. Holding a privileged geographic location near the Tejo river, framed by seven hills and the valleys in between, the myths that permeate the capital – the poems and songs and storytelling – take their cue from this landscape. In these hills, within the valleys, and along the rivers, you witness the traditions, material landscape, and visual identity, and peoples that define the Portuguese capital.

NEIGHBORHOODS AND PLACEMAKING

These seven hills are also home to the most emblematic neighborhoods in Lisbon. It is in these neighborhoods that people, ideas, and places converge. In their difference, neighborhoods shape the identity, image, and soul of the city. These neighborhoods are characterized by music, a smell, or voices from the past. And in the end, each neighborhood offers a feeling of belonging to those who live in it. If we look closely at the image of the city of Lisbon, we can see the crossing of two planes: one of the current, the other of the past. But the new and the old are intertwined, giving rise to a unique identity. The neighborhoods of Lisbon tell how history has moved through different civilizations, people, and time, and a multicultural image is reflected in the landscape, architecture, and people.

Investigation: Interpreting the City

We will take you on a journey into this city; through its neighborhoods to make sense of the elements that shape the socio-urban diversity of the city itself. We’ll use our image-making and research practices to try and capture the identity of its neighborhoods to create our collective interpretive image of the city. Here, we mix our lived experience with the experience we will share. We'll end the day with a de-brief and start planning the catalog to be produced out of the visual immersion day.

This event is complimentary to all in person blended delegates.