The Civic Stage, edited by José Esparza Chong Cuy, the curator of the New Publics programme, explores the idea of a crossover between reality and fiction. In real life as in theatre, acting is a prerequisite. And yet, somehow, the creative freedom provided by performing on stage is somehow tamed down when acted out in real life. It is this condition of fiction — the reading of a theatrical performance as a moment detached from reality —, which allows for theatrical experiments to be so radically groundbreaking. But understanding that theatre is as real as life, and acknowledging that the language it uses to communicate — visually, audibly, emotionally — with an audience, is the same language we use to understand each other in reality, why isn’t real life the stage where we can act out our desires?
The e-book is the result of this public programme performed through speech, body and civic acts on a civic stage located in Lisbon downtown. A public platform that visitors, passerbys, and all Lisbon residents were welcome to use and perform the city they imagine.
Designed by the British Zak Group, this digital publication also features the contribution of Reinhold Martin, an important American historian and professor, Victoria Bugge Øye, a researcher at Princeton; Pelin Tan, an artist and researcher at MiT; the British architect and urbanist Daniel Fernandez Pascual, the curator Tobi Maiere and Frida Escobedo, a renowned Mexican architect.
For further information about Close, Closer and review the associated exhibition. Check the ebooks review by the architect and critic Luís Santiago Baptista.
