Ângela Ferreira
Revolutionary Traces
7 December 2014–22 February 2015
Opening: Saturday 6 December, 5pm by Adri Duivesteijn
preceded at 4pm by a lecture by Nelson Mota (architect and assistant Professor at TU Delft)
Stroom Den Haag
Hogewal 1-9
2514 HA The Hague
The Netherlands
Hours: Wednesday–Sunday noon–5pm
T +31 70 3658985
info [at] stroom.nl
“Buildings can be read as political texts and this is what I try to do.”
–Ângela Ferreira
This winter Stroom Den Haag presents Revolutionary Traces, the first solo exhibition of the Portuguese-South African artist Ângela Ferreira in The Netherlands. Two new sculptures will link the work of the architect Álvaro Siza Vieira in the Schilderswijk in The Hague with Bairro da Bouça in Porto. Both housing projects were realized under revolutionary circumstances, in a time when experiment, guts and collective creativity formed the key elements.
The work of Ângela Ferreira focuses on buildings and the meaning they have in different time frames, on different locations, for different people. From this viewpoint she looked at the work of Álvaro Siza Vieira in the Schilderswijk in The Hague. In the 1980s Siza was invited to The Hague by Adri Duivesteijn, at that time alderman for housing, as part of the campaign “Urban renewal as cultural activity.” Duivesteijn first came into contact with the architect’s work when he visited Porto where Siza, as a member of the group SAAL (Serviçio Ambulatório de Apoio Local – Local Ambulatory Support Service, 1974–76) had realized a number of social housing projects together with the inhabitants. Duivesteijn was looking for an unconventional and visionary architect, capable of realizing meaningful and high-quality housing projects based on the existing cultures and the specific demands of local inhabitants.
Revolutionary Traces looks at this extraordinary period in the history of social housing and asks questions about the current role of urban renewal, the involvement of visionary policy makers and the call of the government for participation by the inhabitants.
In addition to the two sculptures the exhibition features documents, photographs, videos and drawings illustrating both Ferreira’s way of thinking and working and the way Siza met the challenge in The Hague. Also included in the show is an evocative film by Catarina Alves Costa (daughter of Alexandre Alves Costa, one of the prominent members of SAAL) showing the citizens of Porto taking to the streets in order to demand better housing conditions.
Parallel to the presentation at Stroom the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art in Porto hosts the exhibition The SAAL Process: Architecture and Participation 1974-1976. As part of that show Ângela Ferreira presents the sculpture SAAL brigades, based on the work of Siza in Bairro da Bouça in Porto.
A catalogue linking the historical projects in Porto and in the Schilderswijk will accompany the exhibition. In addition there will be an in-depth side program exploring the theme of housing and urban renewal as a cultural activity.
Revolutionary Traces is made possible in part by the Creative Industries Fund NL and Mondriaan Fund.
