BoCA Online: editorial by John Romão
BoCA Online
Program of artistic creation and circulation of thought
The context of global paralysis that we are experiencing today, which is the cause of the current pandemic crisis, can serve as an opportunity to decolonize our imaginary and rethink models of communication, production and performative presentation that, born in the specific urgencies of this critical context, can be consequent and may extend into the future.
More than recourse measures that arise from the impossibility of “normal” compliance with an activity plan, BoCA builds from scratch a program of reflection on the state of the world and on the architectures of the sensitive that we now inhabit: the body, the house and the camera. These elements are central references in the history of artistic experimentation, which links the performing body to technology and the domestic space, to which we are currently circumscribed and which we are interested in discussing in this cycle.
If artistic practice feeds on a passion for the unknown, BoCA takes advantage of this temporal and spatial gap of confinement, a suspension that puts us in a democratic doubt and demands from us utopias and the exercise of freedom through the uses of imagination, to inaugurate a new online program. BoCA Online produces unknowledge, produces doubts and questions, and also forecasts “expecting affects” (Ernst Bloch) about the future in order to think about performativity.
This is a programming cycle that takes place online (non-place) and has an open duration (non-time), because it is in solidarity with the artistic sector and with audiences, with whom we intend to share a daily space and time around thought and artistic creation.
BoCA Online dialogues between the past and the present: commissions and finances new creations; features live streaming performances; streams videos and films by artists from art collections (BoCA in cooperation with Tate Modern and with Serralves Foundation Collection) and the BoCA archive; presents online conversations to which we invite artists, thinkers, scientists, activists, curators or politicians; a new version of Ecotemporâneos [Ecotemporaries], now in an online format, combining photography, nature and literature at home; and the BoCA Sub21 platform, dedicated to young people aged 16-21.
With a daily schedule, BoCA Online will run for at least two and a half months, until the end of June 2020, on BoCA’s online channels (Instagram, Facebook, YouTube) and the Zoom platform.
Every Monday we will announce the week’s schedule, which consists of 6 different activities, each with a different guest. BoCA Online integrates the participation of Ailton Krenak, Albano Jerónimo, Ana Gomes, Anabela Mota Ribeiro, André Lepecki, Alexandra Pirici, Bill T. Jones, Catarina Vaz Pinto, Cecilia Bengolea, Dora Garcia, Florentina Holzinger, Gerard & Kelly, Gonçalo M. Tavares, Joana de Verona, Lia Rodrigues, João Pedro Vale & Nuno Alexandre Ferreira, José Bragança de Miranda, Maria Mota, Mariana Monteiro, Mariana Tengner Barros, Meg Stuart, Miguel Moreira, Odete, Os Espacialistas, Pedro Barateiro, Sara Barros Leitão, Salomé Lamas, Silvestre Pestana, Tania Bruguera, Tânia Carvalho, Tate Modern, among other guests we will be announcing soon.
We are in solidarity with the entire artistic sector (artists, technicians, producers, curators, programmers,…), which we invite to join us in this programming cycle, which I hope will contribute to a greater union between us, the public and the other sectors of social, political or ecological life, capable of analyzing the present and sowing hopes that will protect us and strengthen a future to come. For now, the hope is in affection, in protecting ourselves and taking care, as well as our family, friends and artistic community; the hope is to develop a policy of affection and solidarity, pointing out new lines of cultural cooperation; the hope is also to reflect for at least two and a half months, on our practices from a place of forced suspension that we inhabit, and on the new possibilities that our practices may benefit, taking into account the current context. It will not be difficult to foresee future artistic practices with a powerful vital pulse and to mark several generations. Let’s contribute to this?
— John Romão
Founder, artistic director and curator