For centuries, museums have been considered standard-bearers of truth, history, and humanity's great achievements, yet they remain complex spaces from political, social, and cultural perspectives. They retain old colonial or imperial habits and hierarchies, as well as modes of operation that often stray from current needs.
Without pretending to be an encyclopedic document on the subject, Umbigo #96 returns to this debate to examine the history of museums and how artists, curators, architects, and cultural agents have been deconstructing the concept of museums and establishing a critical method that analyzes, resolves, and proposes new ambitions for these institutions, within a series of contemporary theoretical frameworks that seem more demanding and inclusive.
This edition includes Miguel Palma and Gala Porras-Kim (authors of the covers, back covers, and Art Projects); Ainhoa González (curatorial project); Ritó Natálio, Helena Barranha, Mariana Varela, Olivier Marboeuf (written essays); Françoise Vergès (interview); Marta Aguiar, Laura Castro, Álvaro Domingues, Adelino Gonçalves, Raquel Gouveia, Cristina Mateus, Mariana Caló + Francisco Queimadela, Diana Amadeu, Mireia Massagué, and Nausica Sánchez (Dossier Museu Experimenta Paisagem); primeira desordem (Landscapes Project); Mariana Tilly (FLAD Interchanges Project); Natsumi Aoyagi (JUMP Extension); Rodrigo Cass (Brotéria Extension); Miguel Teodoro and Shuang Xu, Manuel Queiró (UmbigoLAB).
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INDEX
A Poem
1 > minor place – Tatiana Faia
12 > Editorial
14 > Contributors
Mixed media on paper
30 > Collecting worlds – Luísa Salvador
Deep Learning
34 > #34 – Sara Antónia Matos
Conversation Piece - PLMJ
36 > #16 – João Silvério
Project Miguel Palma (COVER 1)
38 > Profile by José Pardal Pina
41 > Art Project
Project Gala Porras-Kim (COVER 2)
48 > Profile by José Pardal Pina
51 > Art Project
Exhibition
58 > The museum of the future: will we build it or will others do it for us by Ainhoa González
Essays
79 > Notes on an Experience, Teshima Art Museum – Elsa Garcia
87 > elling Stories As If We Were Raining – Ritó Natálio
93 > Back to Athens: The Acropolis Museum – Helena Barranha
98 > Life is elsewhere. The Museum as Heterotopia – Mariana Varela
102 > Museum of Breath – Olivier Marboeuf
Interview
111 > Françoise Vergès: Do We Dare to Imagine? – Josseline Black
Dossier Museu Experimenta Paisagem
116 > Building Places – Marta Aguiar
117 > A Scenario for Hope – Laura Castro
120 > In Search of Forgotten Places – Álvaro Domingues
122 > "A Gente quer é Gente" [All we want is People] – Adelino Gonçalves / Photography: Raquel Gouveia Marto
128 > Visual Essay – Cristina Mateus
133 > Visual Essay – Mariana Caló + Francisco Queimadela
138 > Visual Essay – Diana Amadeu
143 > An Interview with Mireia Massagué and Nausica Sánchez – Maria Inês Mendes
Landscapes Project
147 > #5 – primeira desordem
Interchanges Project – FLAD
155 > Mariana Tilly
Unfolding
162 > JUMP: Global Collaboration Program for Emerging Artists and Curators from Japan – Natsumi Ayoagi
168 > Brotéria and the School of Arts – Rodrigo Cass
UmbigoLAB – Millennium bcp Foundation
174 > #27 – An interview with Miguel Teodoro and Shuang Xu about the UmbigoLAB artistic residency at Loulé Criativo – João Pedro Soares
178 > #28 – Manuel Queiró – Laurinda Branquinho
Zoom
182 > Lee Ufan – Serralves
183 > An autobiography of death, Tracey Emin's greatest mistake – Tate Modern
184 > Anatomies of Inclusion Brigitte Meier-Denninghoff – Berlinische Galerie
Back cover
Miguel Palma through one of Arizona's desert, 2012
