Communicating Objects
Lisboa, Portugal, 1999
Curator of the Communicating Objects exhibition, part of the EXD’99 programme.
The first edition of the EXD Biennale in 1999 brought together over 150 national and international participants to Lisbon. One of the Biennale’s main events was the Communicating Objects exhibition, presented in Convento do Beato between September 13 and October 5.
The exhibition’s theme, proposed and explored by Guta Moura Guedes, focused on the symbolic and semiotic elements that some artefacts possess due to their communication capacity and potential for applicability in scenographic narratives, whether in film, video or theatre.
From a film of their own choice, the invited creators selected an object considered fundamental to the film’s narrative, which they re-enacted and reinterpreted in the form of an installation.
Communicating Objects, with exhibition design by Pedro Gadanho, featured set designer António Lagarto, film director João Botelho, theatre directors João Brites and João Garcia Miguel, architects João Mendes Ribeiro, Manuel Graça Dias (1953-2019) and Egas José Vieira, and painter, costume designer and set designer Vera Castro (1947-2010).
José Wallenstein in the Público newspaper (21 November 2010):
“This knowledge (about costumes),” José Wallenstein reveals, comes from the fact that “Vera has had, all her life, the dream of being a dancer.” (…) In 1999, when experimentadesign invited her and a group of set designers to choose a film that was unique to them, Vera Castro chose The Red Shoes, by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, precisely about the life of a ballerina who is deprived of the chance to dance. “It was a beautiful installation, in a warehouse, with a giant, bright red pointed shoe suspended and dripping with blood.”
