Text by CLOT Magazine
The Galeria Municipal do Porto presents exhibitions that reflect on recent trends in contemporary artistic and discursive production; they aim to promote research, exchange and dissemination of ideas stimulating a debate surrounding the arts. Furthermore, this weekend, November 26 and 27, at the Hall of Biodiversity – Ciência Viva Center | Museum of Natural History of the University of Porto, Portugal, they run The Shape of a Circle in the Dream of a Fish*, a festival that investigates the role dreams play in our lives.
The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish series is curated by the founder of the General Ecology project and ecology strategic advisor at the Serpentine Gallery, Lucia Pietroiusti, and the Artistic Director of Galeria Municipal do Porto Filipa Ramos.
If we know that the average human has between three and eight dreams per night, how many are the interspecies dreams that shape our world’s nights? Do fish dream of themselves? Do butterflies have lucid dreams? Is electric sheep what androids really dream of? The Shape of a Circle in the Dream of a Fish dwells in those spiritual, creative and scientific practices that invite us to re-evaluate how we share this planet with all creatures and life forms. It celebrates the relationship between magic and science as complementary modes of discovering, understanding, and shaping the world, ourselves and others.
The Shape of a Circle in the Dream of a Fish also explores the role dreams play in our lives, embracing them as sleep-time experiences and threshold zones in which the cogito and the oneiric coexist. In doing so, the festival gathers architects, artists, historians, philosophers, musicians and scientists to share their knowledge and tell stories celebrating the entanglement between self, mind and planet.
Participants include Yussef Agbo-Ola/Olaniyi Studio, Federico Campagna, Nicola S. Clayton, Onome Ekeh, Cru Encarnação, Alex Jordan, Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe, Nahum, Hatis Noit, and Rain Wu and includes a screening of films by artists Mariana Caló and Francisco Queimadela, Rosalind Fowler, Derek Jarman, Dominique Knowles, Ben Rivers and Himali Singh Soin.
