Research

Since 2017, research has been a relevant domain in the activity of Visões Úteis. And we are not referring here to research inherent to creative processes, but to projects of a scientific nature and in articulation with higher education institutions, research centers, professors and researchers. This line - which was already foreseen 10 years earlier in the academic choices of some artistic directors - allows not only to produce and transfer knowledge but also to reinforce the aesthetic questioning and political impact of projects in the field of creation.

Reenact Now (2023)

To imagine to incarnate, or in a more simplistic way, why not?, to copy the past; which is neither simple to do - in the tension between the desire to create community and the attraction to the fixation of a narrative - nor easy to define, sometimes as a metaphor, sometimes as a metamorphosis.

Why? Because nobody remembers. Because the memory of the ineffable performance moments disappears with the death of those who were present. And because without memory nothing can be inscribed in identity. Striving for the memory of performance - through its archive - is to legitimize the performing arts as a factor of identity.

In collaboration with CEIS20 - Center for Interdisciplinary Studies of the 20th Century, of the University of Coimbra, the first edition of this cycle of contextualized reenactments, of the last 50 years, is scheduled for 2022.

Fogo de Campus (2022/23)

More than the production of knowledge, the objective of this project is the transfer of the knowledge produced, namely in an academic context, not only about the cultural sector (in particular artistic creation and even more in particular the performing arts) but everything that it is transversal to it, like Constitutional Law or Macroeconomics.

In collaboration with the CEIS20 - Center for Interdisciplinary Studies of the 20th Century, of the University of Coimbra, the aim is to empower artists and other agents in the sector, guaranteeing them the knowledge and mastery of the mechanisms of power and decision-making processes in which it is part exercising their citizenship and profession; it is also intended to guarantee a full meaning to the knowledge produced in universities, promoting its application to the social, economic and political contexts it addresses. Activity planned from 2022.

Application of Performing Arts to Autism Spectrum Disorder therapy

Validation (2021) - Six years after the first edition, the Creative Workshops are carried out in partnership with the Portuguese Association for Developmental Disorders and Autism (APPDA - North). Two types of objectives are now pursued: On the one hand, to introduce the methodologies already mentioned in the evaluation of the conclusion of the first edition, namely the existence of pairs (non-autistic trainees in a one-on-one relationship with each autistic trainee); on the other hand, associating a higher education institution with the initiative - the Center for Humanistic Studies of the University of Minho (CEHUM) - that guarantees some kind of validation of the results, in particular through the initial and final assessment of the cognitive and emotional parameters in which the activity may have an impact.

Piloto (2015) - In partnership with Associação Vencer Autismo, the first edition of this line of activity (applying performing arts to the therapy of Autism Spectrum Disorder) was, to a large extent, a leap into the dark, such was the paucity of the bibliography and what little experience we had, if any. Even so, we advanced to the planning and implementation of an 8-month course, believing that this could be the first step in a long-term work and that, at least, at the end of this pilot project, we would soon make public a notebook with the notes of this first edition.

Validade: evaluation (2021)

Between 2018 and 2020, our creation “Validade” followed the same groups of young people, between the 7th and 9th grade of schooling and roughly between 13 and 15 years old. Always around the issue of sustainability (of personal relationships, construction materials and the digital universe) the project unfolded into 3 workshops which were associated with 3 successively denser moments of public presentation (first in the respective schools, then in the schools of the colleagues, finally in the main concert hall of the county). Lara Soares, PhD student in Art Education at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, followed the process over the three years, signing a scientific article that allows an outside and distant look at the meanings and impacts of the activity.

Pláka (2018)

The Pláka Collectives program, run by the Porto City Council, brought together groups for reflection and thought production on contemporary art and artistic practice.

Politics of Survival - tutored by Carlos Costa, Jorge Palinhos and Gabriela Vaz-Pinheiro - intended to “activate and transmit knowledge, seeking in this transmission ways to emulate the paths and flows of the streets, commons, squares and views”, in a reflection on the articulation between what we do and the space(s) we inhabit.

“Politics of Survival” divided into three sub-themes, or chapters: Spirit of Survival, Matter of Survival and Modes of Survival, 6 sessions between workshops, conversations and drifts with philosophers, artists, architects, geographers, urban planners, activists: Aliki Kylika & Kyveli Anastasiadi, Álvaro Domingues, Camille Louis, João Luis Fernandes, Jorge Leandro Rosa, Lia Carreira, Margarida Mendes, Mariana Pestana, Marjetca Potrč, Marta Alvim, Matilde Seabra and Rui Matoso.