Ateliers Abertos in Torreão: education through landscape

Abstract

The text deals with experiences of education and art held at the Torreão, a venue that promoted, from 1993 to 2009, an intersection between the production and reflection on contemporary art in Porto Alegre. The Ateliers Abertos were collective incursions into landscapes that happened with groups of students/artists that turn the experienced places into a starting point for artistic experimentation. The displacements range from canyon depressions to the plains of the pampa; from the salt desert to the sea coast. The experience with these places leads to a second reflection of time and space, refuting the automatism involved in artmaking. The encounter with the landscapes disassembles categories such as hit and miss, individual and collective, imagination and materiality, in processes of experimentation. The Ateliers Abertos reinforce the commitment of education with change as they propose the constant reinvention of different ways of crafting.