Transforma Think Tank (TTT): March 2008

Friday, March 14, 2008

Participants TTT Touring Porto

Host:

Michael DaCosta (UK)

Founder Director of Architects of Communication (Europe).
From 1999 to 2001 Michael carried out research on the subject of Enterprise and Management of the Creative Arts for London College of Printing at the University of the Arts London focussing on the relationship between commerciality and creativity. He is a London advisory Council member of Arts & Business and a board member IXIA (UK Public Art Think Tank). Michael was host of: the World Creative Forum during the London Design Festival in 2003; the Great Artistic Metropolis, National Public Art Conference, London in November 2005; the Can Artists Make Great Places Conference (London Design Festival) 2007. He recently worked on a successful Culture 2007 application for the Portuguese Order of Architects and was a consultant on the winning Wieden and Kennedy pitch for the global Nokia advertising account (worth 200m USD) earlier this year. Michael also lectures, is a contributing editor to Art and Architecture Journal and writes for Prophecy magazine in NYC. He contributed to the forthcoming book ‘1001 buildings’ by Quarto Publishing in the UK. He participated as a panelist in the One Dot Zero and British Council Re-Imagining the City tour of South East Asia 2008."
He lives in Porto and London.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Bronac Ferran (UK)

Bronac Ferran is a freelance writer, researcher and arts consultant who also works part-time as a Visiting Lecturer in the Industrial Design Engineering department at the Royal College of Art in London. She is involved in projects in Brasil, China and the US and is a founder member of the bricolabs initiative which has members worldwide. Her work in the UK includes contributing to the ACE funded Art and Law initiative; she is a former Director of Interdisciplinary Arts at ACE where she led a department responsible for activities and initiatives between the arts and other disciplines and served on the DCMS Creative Industries and Higher Education Advisory Group and Research and Knowledge Transfer task group as well as other policy initiatives. See www.boundaryobject.org for more information on her work.

Daniel Pires (PT)

Daniel Pires holds a degree in Photography from the Escola Superior Artística do Porto and several professional photography qualifications. He has developed, since 1991, a continuous activity as a teacher in the area of photography, in institutions such as IPJ, KODAK, Fundação da Juventude, Escola Cooperativa Politécnica Árvore, ESAP (Escola Superior Artística do Porto), Oficinas do Convento, Maus Hábitos, BNB (Banco do Nordeste do Brasil). During this period he was also the owner of a Professional Photography Lab, where he printed the work of photographers such as Graça Sarsfield, Luis Palma, João Paulo Sotto Mayor; and he was Printer Technician at Kodak, in Portugal. In 2001 he funded Maus Hábitos, a Space of Cultural Intervention, where he works as Director, and Programmer in areas such as fine arts, photography, music, theatre, performing arts and dance. As a creative he exhibits individually and collectively and he has won in 2000 the 2nd Prize in the Creative Contest for the construction of a Lisbon Metro Station with the project ‘Não te Esqueças’.

Liz Lydiate (UK)

Is Course Director for the full-time international MA in Enterprise and Management for the Creative Arts and the linked EU part-time MA in Enterprise and Management for the Creative Arts at the University of the Arts London. Prior to joining UAL she was Reader in Design Management for the Surrey Institute of Art and Design (now University College for the Creative Arts), where she established successful BA Hons and MA programmes in Design Management. She acts as Director of Professional Practice Training for the Design Business Association, and has research interests in the self-image of the artist, tertiary level curriculum development for professional practice, and CPD for the creative industry sector internationally.

Luís Firmo (PT)

Artistic Director of Transforma.
Luís Firmo is a Cultural and Arts Manager and Curator and holds a Degree in Product Design from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon (FBA-UL) and a Sculpture qualification from AR.CO. He holds a Post-Graduation in Arts Management from the Instituto Nacional de Administração (INA), Fundação CCB-FLAD, and a Post-Graduation in Curatorial Studies from FBA-UL-Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. He develops a continuous activity as creative, as teacher and as manager and curator in contemporary arts. He is a Co-Founder Member and Chairman of Transforma AC, where he is currently responsible for the Artistic Direction and Programming.

Luís Serpa (PT)

Through O MUSEU TEMPORÁRIO, a cultural engineering project, Luís Serpa has established himself as a Cultural Projects Manager (Programmer), offering the services of Curatorship, Public Relations and Strategic Planning for Institutions and Companies in programmes of contemporary culture and corporate identity.
Working in the area of the Sociology of Culture, he is the driving force behind the Agency for the Development of Creative Industries, a platform of Cultural Events organised in the areas of Architecture, Visual Arts and Antiques, Audiovisual Media – Television and Radio, Performing Arts and Entertainment, Film and Video, Graphic Design and Product, Writing and Publication, Fashion, Music, Educational Software and Leisure, Advertising and Gastronomy.

Luís Tavares Pereira (PT)

Luís Tavares Pereira born in Lisbon, 1966, is Vice-President of the Architects’ Association at Porto (OASRN), and founding partner of architectural studio [A] ainda arquitectura, currently involved in a series of cultural projects in Tbilisi, Georgia. Graduated from the architecture school of University of Porto (FAUP, 1991), M.Arch (Princeton University, 1996). He was curator of “Toll Free” exhibition, Faro, 2007, and co-curator of the Guest Countries exhibition, for the 1st Lisbon Architecture Triennale, 2007 (TAL’07), where he also curated the international conference “The Heart of the city”. He was co-curator of “Metaflux: two generations in portuguese recent architecture” for the Venice Biennale, 2004; the multimedia project “Records of a Transformation” on the urban transformation of Porto 2001, the “Museus de Arte (Art Museums)” international conference, Serralves/OASRN, 2005, and of the Prototypo Architecture Seminar “Performing the city”, an international seminar held in Porto, 2001. At OASRN he co-curated the “Reunião de Obra/Site Meeting” exhibition series, the “In Transit” lecture series, or the “Road to Wonderland” Young Portuguese Architects lecture series. He was also co-responsible for the “I love Távora” series, and instituting the Travel Grant “Fernando Távora” after the famous Portuguese architect recently deceased.

Selected [A] ainda arquitectura projects include the Creative Industries Pavilion for SerralvesMuseum, Porto; conversion of the Ferraz-Bravo17th Century house for luxury Hotel, Porto (with Promontório Architects); Private residence, at Louro, included in 2G Dossier “Portugal 2000-2005: 25 buildings of the 21st Century”; the travelling exhibition that opened at the 2004 Venice Biennale “Metaflux”, later presented in Lisbon and São Paulo, Brazil; the “Collector’s house” exhibition for the ExperimentaDesign 2001, Lisbon Design Biennale, include in Prototypo #008.
In 2002, [A] ainda arquitectura was one of 5 portuguese studios selected by Álvaro Siza, to present their work at the III Spanish and Portuguese Architecture Meeting, at Salamanca, Spain.

Michael Flood (UK)

He has a 30-year track record in inter-disciplinary arts in Britain and Europe, and has held senior positions in several of the UK’s most innovative arts venues, including 7 years as Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Britain’s leading contemporary arts institution. Since 1997, his London-based arts consultancy Strategies for Art and Space, has worked extensively with governments, cultural institutions and European agencies on the development of cultural policy, analysis and research with particular expertise in: European arts and cultural policy; Architectural issues and space utilisation in cultural buildings; Organisation and infrastructure; Analysis, strategy, research and evaluation; Contemporary arts programming and production.
In addition to his work as a consultant and producer, he holds or have held the following honorary positions: 2004-present – Member of the Board of Directors of the European Forum for Arts and Heritage (EFAH); 2003-present – Member of the Board of Directors of the The Thames Festival, London; 1996-2001 – President of the Informal European Theatre Meeting (IETM), Europe’s largest membership organisation for professionals in the contemporary performing arts with over 450 members in 42 countries; 1997-2001 – Chairman of the The Lux Centre, London, the UK’s first centre for independent film and digital media.

Nuno Grande (PT)

Nuno Grande was born in 1966. Obtained his degree in Architecture at the Universidade do Porto in 1992. Assistant Lecturer at the Department of Architecture of the Universidade de Coimbra (DARQ/FCTUC) since 1993. Guest Lecturer at the Faculty of Architecture of Oporto in 2006, at the Contemporary Urbanism course. Presently preparing his PhD at the University of Coimbra, on the relationship between Culture, City and Architecture. He was responsible for the Cultural Program on Architecture and City, in Porto 2001, European Capital of Culture and shared responsibility for Culture in the Architectural Order, North Section, (OASRN) from 1999 to 2004. He is author or editor of the following essays: “O Verdadeiro Mapa do Universo: uma leitura diacrónica da cidade portuguesa” (Edarq, 2002) on the evolution of Portuguese Cities; “Arquitectura & Não” (Caleidoscópio, 2005), a selection of his own texts; and Cidade-Sofia, Cidades Universitárias em debate” (Edarq,2005), a compilation of different expert approaches on European University Cities. He is member of the Portuguese Section of the Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art (AICA) and of the Editorial Board of Jornal dos Arquitectos, the official magazine of the Portuguese Order of Architects. He writes occasionally for architectural publications published in Portugal and Spain. He uses his own architectural design studio as a complement of his academic and critical work and as a professional co-authorship platform with other studios.

Renata Catambas (PT)

Currently finishing the Painting course in FBAUL. She integrates the editorial board of Marte (publication directed by students from FBAUL - research space, on the current artistic creation), which is now designing the 3th number, where the subject “performance” has been discussed. Programming and production of the cycle of conferences PERFORMANCE: estudos, Culturgest - Lisbon, 2006. Some of her works are: exercicío, with Lúcia Prancha, Alkantara – International Festival of Performative Arts, 2006; trio mutiplicado, from Tiago Guedes, interpretation; como eu e tu cycle, Teatro Camões, 2006; exercício sobre verdade, with Yann Gibert and Ana Moreira, project Inter.faces07 – NEC, 2007.

Tiago Miranda (PT)

Executive Director of Transforma.
Previously he was administrating an international transdisciplinary arts centre and before that he was Marketing Coordinator of the Engineering Division of Novabase, the largest listed Portuguese IT consultancy firm.
He led a logistic Shows team in Lisbon Expo'98 World Exhibition and developed several productions of theatre and audiovisual projects.
He studied Economics in Lisbon (ISEG-UTL) and History of the Arts in AR.CO.