Porto Summer School on Art & Cinema: Party Studies

The Porto Summer School on Art & Cinema is an advanced course in arts and cinema, combining critical thinking with film and contemporary art. The diversity of research and creative approaches, as well as the main challenges of our shared historical present, will be discussed by a group of artists, filmmakers together with thinkers, scholars and activists. The Summer School is accepting applications for participants and for workshops. 

Party studies
As places of alternative and temporary communities, parties are, through history—at least since the 1960s civic and sexual revolutions and countercultures—central to our communal living. They are places of resistance—we may think of the punk and rock’n’roll movements—to the official or traditional culture, and places of otherness. Parties are, therefore, a place of other subjectivities, in which the subject multiplies itself to the many “others”. Parties are also the background for the gay movement and the LGBTQIA+ new epistemology of being. So, performance, community, sharing, body, and the senses are all at play in the concept of party.

In this 2023’s edition of the Summer School, we want to dedicate a week to study (and the practice) of the party, as a concept for change and for cultivating otherness, in a world in which conservative agendas are threatening the necessary and radical transformation of our democratic and civic societies. Maybe, partying will help us to see and play that radical transformation. More information about applications here.

Invited artists, directors and performers: Bárbara Wagner & Benjamin de Burca, Carla Filipe + Post Brothers, Jazmín Lopez + Marie de Brugerolle, Piny and guests, Teatro Praga, Tim Bernardes

Call for workshops
Following the main guidelines for this year’s Summer School, we invite artists, scholars and collectives to submit a proposal for a three hours’ workshop to take place during the mornings of the School. These workshops can take different forms: more performative or more theoretical, addressing the pressing issues presented in the curatorial text. More instructions here.

Selected proponents will receive a fee and participate free of charge in the Summer School. We won’t be able to pay for flights, neither accommodation or meals during the stay. Proposals should be submitted to summerschool.arts@ucp.pt

School of Arts at Catholic University of Portugal
The School of Arts (SoA) offers an intense cultural program, with artists in residence (former residents include Matías Piñeiro, Letícia Ramos, Ben Russell, Nuno da Luz, Ana Vaz, Jonathan Uliel Saldanha, Salomé Lamas and Yohei Yamakado), a cycle of conferences with special guests (artists, filmmakers, scholars), and a periodic calendar of exhibitions at the School’s exhibition space (since 2018, the School presented exhibitions by Francisco Tropa, João Paulo Serafim, Salomé Lamas, Mariana Caló & Francisco Queimadela, Nuno da Luz, Julião Sarmento, Jonathan Saldanha and Guido Guidi). 

The SoA is currently accepting applications for its Master programs, as well as accepting international applications for its Bachelor programs. PhD applications will begin in May. See all programs here.

Postdoctoral position in New Media Art opening in April
The Research Centre of Science and Technology of Arts—CITAR, integrated at the School of Arts, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, will announce in April the opening of a position for a postdoctoral researcher in the scientific area of New Media Art. The researcher will be integrated into a lively context of artistic-based research activity and cultural agenda, which combines conferences, exhibitions, screening series, editorial work, a Summer School, and other research-related activities (such as reading groups and research meetings). The researcher will be located in Porto, a cultural, international, and diverse city. To stay informed about the opening, please contact citar [​at​] ucp.pt.