Projeções 2022

Projeções is a joint initiative of the Drawing Department of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto and Lugar do Desenho – Júlio Resende Foundation. Its first edition dates from 2011 and was conceived in the scope of Drawing Practices (FBAUP), an optional course offered annually to students of the Fine Arts Degree (LAP).

One element that has always characterized the exhibition series Projeções is the heterogeneity of the drawing proposals presented. If, on the one hand, each student/artist develops his studio activity with freedom and autonomy, presenting previously, in the context of class, his or her individual research proposal, on the other hand, it can be seen that the field of Drawing and its many protagonists have always been guided by the richness and diversity of the means, techniques and drawing processes implemented.

But this heterogeneity is still exponential because the students of LAP, in this course, come from three distinct areas of expertise, namely Painting, Sculpture and Multimedia, thus making up relevant bridges and links between Drawing and the work developed in the classes of Project and Atelier.

Concomitantly, with the revisions of the study plans of Fine Arts and Communication Design (LDC) we have seen a new phenomenon. The mandatory and initial course in Drawing at FBAUP passed entirely to semester courses and, at the same time, the preparation, training and teaching in the area of Drawing were shortened, which have as a first consequence, in this initiative in particular, the presence of students from the second to the fourth year of the LAP, while previously, this course was mainly designed for students who were finalists of the two courses with projects already more mature.

A little for all these factors, and still betting on the idea of heterogeneity, in this edition of Projections, it was decided to also host in the same exhibition space and under the same designation, the work of the students of the Drawing Studio of the Master in Fine Arts (MAP). Both in this course and in the BA course of the two different study cycles, the work is always based on the individual proposal of each student. Thus, in the Hiscox room (room 3) the works of 3 students from the Drawing Studio (MAP) and in the larger room (temporary exhibition gallery) of both study courses (LAP & MAP) are presented together.

This year, as has happened in previous years, not being able to present to the public all the work done, by the limitations of the space and high number of participants, each student presents only a small part of his production, a selection of the most representative work carried out. For this reason, and new in this issue of Projections, are the personal atlases, projected in the gallery, where each student has the opportunity to show more work and clues that will eventually allow the public to better contextualize the research performed. This presentation model, in the first instance, appears in the two courses as a referential atlas, a work tool, reflection and contextualization in the contemporaneity that, throughout the semester, adapts and transforms itself until giving place to the many author’s Atlases that are presented here. Taking advantage of this possibility of projection, there is also another work and reflection tool used in the two courses of LAP and MAP: the work organigrams, also mutants over time, and that have been adapted to the clarification and enumeration of the most important themes, contexts and questions present in each research.

Pedro Maia
junho de 2022