Past exhibition at Lumiar Cité:

EDGAR PEDROZA
Mapa da Musgueira
28.01-14.02.2010

Info
Press-Release
Exhibition View
Exhibition Website

In the tradition of Architecture Without Architects, Mapa da Musgueira (Map of Musgueira) functions as a particular event in the evolving history of social architecture.
In practice, Mapa da Musgueira functions as the omniscient disclosure of space. As a metaphor, the neighborhood of Musgueira/ Alta de Lisboa is transformed into Bentham's Panopticon through a work of social architecture that does not require the physical manipulation of space or materials.
As a result, Mapa Da Musgueira is accessible to the public as http://www.musgueira.org. As a virtual work that is available for view outside of the exposition space, Lumiar Cité, the requisite of a social contract between the spectator and author, is modified, if not delivered into obsolescence.
http://www.musgueira.org, to launch on 28 January 2010, will be universally accessible from the internet, at the given address. The site will deliver a current map of Musgueira/ Alta de Lisboa. The map will confront the traditional understandings of cartography, as it is produced from thousands of photographs and will result in a three dimensional space, that will allow for manipulation from the end user.
Akin to a similar technology in use by Street View in Google Maps, Mapa da Musgueira furthers the use of available technology by producing high resolution virtual environments not based on an existing transportation infrastructure. Fifty virtual maps of Musgueira/ Alta de Lisboa will allow for infinite navigation to the end user, through the all the hills, developments, and obscure corners of Musgueira/ Alta de Lisboa.
Functioning as the exhibition space for Maumaus – Escola de Artes Visuais, Lumiar Cité continues to explore and define the relationship between the arbiters of culture and a given social architecture. First given as a gesture against the Paris Salon of the mid 19th century, the Salon Des Refusés re-situated a given language and relationship, that between the spectator, institution, and author.
As an enterprise, and a result of the shift in manufacturing from industrialized to developing nations, the 20th century saw the physical transformation of existing architectures for the dissemination of cultural capital. In The Rise of The Creative Class, Richard Florida elaborates on the simultaneous social, economic, and political morphisms that paralleled the creative communities emigration from codified to improvised architectures.
The situation of Lumiar Cité in Musgueira/ Alta de Lisboa again tenders the situation of a given
agenda and acts as the catalyst in supplanting the previous relationships of culture and the citizen.
Mapa da Musgueira, acts as the aggressor in affirming the new relationships demonstrated by the existing architectures, geographies, and cultures of Musgueira/ Alta de Lisboa.
As a gesture to the parallel transformation of real space, Mapa da Musgueira also presents a physical component available for view within the gallery walls of Lumiar Cité.
A new sculpture from 2010 by Edgar Pedroza, Arquitectura Imigrante Vernáculo (Vernacular Immigrant Architectures), acts as a simple metaphor for the social, economic, and political programs demonstrated by urban development.
Arquitectura Imigrante Vernáculo, 2010, will be visible from the interior and exterior of the exposition space, Lumiar Cité, as a miniature architectural event, contorting steel, through modern methods of construction. The work will also be visible at night, as the interior site will be illuminated by multiple industrial lamps, providing two thousand watts of illumination.