2015 » Portugal » Student Section

ID (ENTITY) BOX - UNPACK TO GO

The student section complements the Countries section by asking its participants to build upon the concepts of IDENTITY from their own specific context (as Portuguese and as young professionals). Students were asked to respond to a short pre-defined text questioning the definition of identity through scenography and the scenographer’s role as a political participant. Their creations take the form of parcels that can be used as containers of objects or as the object itself. These boxes are a simplified model of the exhibition room allocated by PQ2015. As with the Countries section, we have chosen to multiply the available space, giving each student the possibility of using the boxes as a shell for their project or as an object to be placed and registered within a larger and broader context. These will be selected and organised with the image/space in mind and with a view towards the idea of the spatial experience of a post office and/or archive. On all three walls of the exhibition hall, visitors will have access to each parcel by opening each PO Box with a chosen key from a selection of keys. We expect that by the end of each exhibition day most PO boxes will be opened and the students’ designs revealed and explored. The student section includes representatives from most Portuguese schools of performing and visual arts, as well as schools of architecture and design. Each school was given a set of blank packing boxes, a short text (commissioned by a specific dramaturg) and a set of instructions. These were distributed amongst the students, who had a month to develop their designs and return them, via mail, to the curatorial team. A selection of these projects was organised into a pre-PQ national exhibition that toured the country alongside the general curatorial process for the Countries section. A smaller selection of these students’ boxes makes up the exhibition at PQ2015, as mentioned above.