Suspended Spaces

Suspended spaces is a project proposed by a collective, which has been working since 2007 from territories "in suspense" for reasons of political, economic and historical conflict. These sensitive areas, abandoned by modernity, make the artistic glance necessary. It was first the ghost city of Famagusta in Cyprus, emptied of its inhabitants by the Turkish army in 1974, then the site of the Tripoli international fair in Lebanon, unfinished project of the architect Oscar Niemeyer, unoccupied so far. Then the project moved to Brazil, in Niteroi, where Oscar Niemeyer designed the Museum of Contemporary Art in relation to the Macquino, another building by the architect, built simultaneously and mirroring the MAC as a gateway to the neighbouring favela.

Suspended spaces is a research project, which organizes residencies, exhibitions, produces artworks and publications. At each of the stages (Cyprus, Lebanon, Brazil), we were invited to share with our guests the experience of sensitive sites; it is in this perspective that we thought this exhibition at Palácio Pombal, an emblematic building of Lisbon and Portugal’s history, a suspended space as well.