Frontier, Fountain, River Mouth: Archive as Ground, Ground as Archive
Frontier, Fountain, River Mouth is a work of art – a public square – designed in 2001 by Carmela Gross for Laguna, Brazil, a city through which the Tordesilhas meridian passes (defining the territories of the Portuguese and Spanish colonies in 1494) and that is bordered by a lagoon and the sea. How might one think about conserving it responsibly? This presentation considers a two-fold approach: understanding the artist’s archive as terrain that should be deeply explored; but also considering the materiality of this place – not only the pavement but the ground as a complex landscape – as an archive, not only in the sense of its scale but also in terms of the relationships it establishes with its surroundings. That is, it seeks to understand the archive as an ongoing process of feedback or self-construction.
Pedro Vieira earned his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. (on a Capes fellowship) from the College of Architecture and Urbanism at the University of São Paulo (FAU USP) and completed research at the Sapienza University of Rome (on a grant from Capes/PDSE). His research links theoretical questions of conservation with themes concerning contemporary art and the public space. He is currently developing postdoctoral research on Cesare Brandi, also at FAU USP, where he works as a Collaborating Professor. In 2021, he received an Honorable Mention from the USP Outstanding Thesis Award.
His latest texts include Restauro, arte contemporânea, espaço público etc., Thesis, FAU USP, Sao Paulo, 2020; “Emergência e paisagem teórica,” in: Revista Rosa, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2020; “Notes on Theories of Conservation – Colonialism, Obsolescence, Misreading,” CeROArt, 2021.
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