Exhibition Switch On! 

Palácio Pombal,

Rua de O Século, 79, 1200 Lisbon.

from April 27 to April 30, 2016, 

Lisbon, Portugal

Ziad Antar - Villa Saida - 2016

Ziad Antar - Vasco Araújo - François Bellenger -  Filip Berte - Marcel Dinahet - Yasmine Eid-Sabbagh - Ângela Ferreira - Maïder Fortuné - Lamia Joreige - Valérie Jouve - Yannis Kyriakides - Jan Kopp - Bertrand Lamarche - Lia Lapithi - Daniel Lê - Françoise Parfait - Sophie Ristelhueber - Mira Sanders - Stéphane Thidet - Eric Valette - Christophe Viart - Mehmet Yashin.

Suspended spaces is a project proposed by a collective, which has been working since 2007 from territories "in suspense" for reasons of political, economic and historical conflict. These sensitive areas, abandoned by modernity, make the artistic glance necessary. It was first the ghost city of Famagusta in Cyprus, emptied of its inhabitants by the Turkish army in 1974, then the site of the Tripoli international fair in Lebanon, unfinished project of the architect Oscar Niemeyer, unoccupied so far. Then the project moved to Brazil, in Niteroi, where Oscar Niemeyer designed the Museum of Contemporary Art in relation to the Macquino, another building by the architect, built simultaneously and mirroring the MAC as a gateway to the neighbouring favela.

Suspended spaces is a research project, which organizes residencies, exhibitions, produces artworks and publications. At each of the stages (Cyprus, Lebanon, Brazil), we were invited to share with our guests the experience of sensitive sites; it is in this perspective that we thought this exhibition at Palácio Pombal, an emblematic building of Lisbon and Portugal’s history, a suspended space as well. 

This ephemeral exhibition activates artworks, projections and gestures in this place considered as a suspended space. Works were selected by the collective among those already produced by the project or specially imagined for the occasion. The light, the dialogue between the works and the building were the subject of a particular attention.

Mira Sanders - A Journey - 2009

Daniel Lê - Tank - 2015

Sophie Ristelhueber - Eleven Blowups # 11 - 2006

François Bellenger - Atraversar - 2016

Vasco Araújo - O Jardim - 2005

Ângela Ferreira

Valérie Jouve - Sans titre - 2013

Ângela Ferreira

On the left  : Valérie Jouve - Sans titre - 2013

On the right : Sophie Ristelhueber - Eleven Blowups # 11 - 2006

Eric Valette - Boa Viagem - 2014

Bertrand Lamarche - The Plot - 2016

At the back : Stéphane Thidet - Half Moon - 2012

In front : Jan Kopp -

Blumenwiese - 2016

On the right : Stéphane Thidet - Half Moon - 2012

On the left  : Jan Kopp - Blumenwiese - 2016

On the right :

Lia Lapithi - Defining Silence - 2010

Ziad Antar - Jezzine Mountain - 2007

On the floor : 

Lia Lapithi - Defining Silence - 2010

On the wall :

Ziad Antar - Burj Khalifa 4 - 2007

On the left : Ziad Antar - Jezzine Mountain - 2007

On the right : Ziad Antar - Villa Saida - 2007

A gauche : Marcel Dinahet - Sur les toits - Tripoli/Niteroi - 2014

A droite : Lamia Joreige - The River - 2013

On the Left : Yasmine Eid-Sabbagh - Sans titre - 2013

On the wall  : Valérie Jouve - Sans titre - 2013

Yasmine Eid-Sabbagh - Sans titre - 2013

On the left : 

Valérie Jouve - Sans titre - 2013

Françoise Parfait - Botanica Entropica - 2010

On the right : 

Valérie Jouve - Sans titre - 2013

Left : 

Valérie Jouve - Sans titre - 2013

Françoise Parfait - Botanica Entropica - 2010

Left : 

Maïder Fortuné - La baleine - Le crocodile - 2015

Right :

Maïder Fortuné - La baleine - Le crocodile - 2015

Yasmine Eid-Sabbagh - Sans titre - 2013

Filip Berte - The Reappropriation of a Simple Form - 2014

Left : 

Christophe Viart - No diving or jumping #2 - 2015

Right :

Valérie Jouve - Sans titre - 2013

Left : 

Christophe Viart - 2016

Right :

Christophe Viart - No diving or jumping #2 - 2015

Mehmet Yashin - Dead House - 2009

Sound recording-  Head phones

Mehmet Yashin

DEAD HOUSE

White space empty of the grandfather clock

Walnut table that has forgotten time

Fingerprints cleansed by dust

Keys long lost

Letterbox locked in rust

Old woman fast asleep, her teeth in a glass

« and this typewriter that wrote father’s first†poems¨†this†house†where†mother†fell†in love, and died — which was taken captive in every war, shot at, set alight, looted of dowries in Ottoman chests, and mirrors, mirrors that beheld all the women of the family naked — mirrors, their bodies draped in sheets —†and†all†the†flowers†withered†and†gone¨†all but the wild pink fragrance of rambling roses — time that great grandmother stored away in white lace covers — this little ghost who came back to his death-place — the long and silent shadows of felled cypress trees — and the inhabitants of this house peer into the half-dark photographs that echo with the savage laughter of wars — a†man†in†a†fez†smiles†through†the†glass¨†he has forgotten why – and this house ponders why those who killed all that was mine left me alive — suddenly there’s light in the nursery where this poem is chanted »

Dead House Dead House Dead House

Nothing but poetry can bring me back.

Neapolis / Nicosia, 1988

Translated by Taner Baybars

Sound diffusion in the staircase :

Yannis Kyriakides - Resorts & Ruins - 2013