Stories of Spaces | Bêka&Lemoine
27.06-30.07.2024

A concrete imprint of one’s life, a customised dream, a ruin of socio-political imaginaries – three films speak about experiences encapsulated within a series of spaces. The installation Stories of Spaces by Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine delves into the symbolic grounds of architecture. The three film projects have been originally created as artistic contributions, yet Butohouse (2019), Selling Dreams (2016), La Maddalena / La Maddalena Chair (2014) have never been shown together in a single installation. Their protagonist’s experiences echo through the exhibition space, immersing the audience in a sensory journey and inviting viewers to engage in their conversations and reflections. The installation opens up space for reading architecture as a representative of the experiences accumulated within it. It promotes a moment to rethink practices and policies through buildings and their contradictions.

Focusing their interest mainly on how the built environment shapes and influences our daily life, Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine have developed a very unique and personal approach which can be defined, in reference to French writer Georges Perec, as an "anthropology of the ordinary". Presented by The New York Times as the "cult figures in the European architecture world", Bêka & Lemoine's work has been widely acclaimed as "a new form of criticism" (Mark) which "has deeply changed the way of looking at architecture" (Domus).

INSTITUTO thanks Fahr 021.3 [designers of the stool featured in the installation] and Iperforma for contribution to the installation.

Fotos:  Ivo Tavares Studio 
Support: DG Artes/Ministério da Cultura e Criatório Porto