Fragments

Elsa Lisboa, Olavo Franco e Ania Skorna

Our work began from visiting three abandoned factories and considering them not in the overall context, but by focusing and some kind of an obsession with fragments - elements that, invisible at a glance, really have the most to say about the place, its identity, and also the time that passed, with all the “scars” and marks located on the walls and floors. From that point of view we created a collection of photos, on which we tried to capture elements we found, that for us were the most important in terms of the place’s history and its previous character. Then we composed them into an exhibition, which is a kind of an interpretation of Alison and Peter Smithson’s work “Parallel of Life and Art” from 1953, and a way to emphasize more strongly certain elements, that are captured on the pictures. After that, with some kind of a parallel, we decided to focus on fragments, this time taken from the entire city of Guimarães, and work on them. Our goal was to demonstrate the potential of the empty space we have, and looking on it from different perspectives, by putting into its area various elements - urban fragments of Guimarães, creating in some cases a kind of urban plan for the future. In the last part of our work - an attempt to intervene in the existing space of the factories - we have tried to see the potential of abandoned spaces, looking to its interior and exposing it to the people. With some small interventions, that do not require a lot of work and financial effort, we want to show the values that are currently hidden. We marked them on the sections and plans of the three factories to characterize each operation itself. We also want to show three pathways that are leading through each factory and showing the activities, which are important to see and experience the hidden values of the factories, by using elements of our interventions. We created a catalog of photos that are showing the materials that can be found in the factories and could be used to make the walls or stairs out of them - it’s a proposal for a low cost method of our idea’s realization.

As a result, we found looking to the city in terms of fragments interesting, because they can be seen as a link between past – the old factory, present – Guimarães – and future – the possibilities that the abandoned factory, and the surrounding area have.