‘Hard Engineering: Propositions for Future Ruins’ – Julie Westerman’s exhibition open at the Gulbenkian in Lisbon

Hard Engineering: Propositions for Future Ruins explores how the urban environment is produced by everyday acts and how the city is constructed from material and immaterial structures of civic organisation, representation, power and control. Six speculative guides to Lisbon re-imagine the contemporary urban environment by exploring overlooked livelihoods, traces of profound social mutation, and the scars of past natural disasters, economic crisis and human conflict. These propositional interpretations of Lisbon are the result of interdisciplinary collaborations across Art, Architecture, Civic Engineering, Physical and Human Geography and Social Anthropology. The videos on display are made up of short moving-image episodes of transformation and decline, thoughts and propositions for identifying and navigating the future ruins of the city.

Hard Engineering – Propositions for Future Ruins
Art Library Atrium
Av. de Berna, 45A, Lisbon
Thursday 08 February 2018 to Tuesday 03 April 2018
Free admission, open 9AM to 7PM.

Curated by: Jaspar Joseph-Lester, Susanne Prinz, Julie Westerman

Participants: Ana Simões, Mónica Amaral Ferreira, Marta Jecu, Jelena Milosevic, Jaspar Joseph-Lester, Ian Kiaer, Bruno Leitão, Sofia Marçal, Filipa Roseta, Miguel Santos, Jonathan Skinner, Carlos Noronha Feio, Susanne Prinz, Pedro Rufino, John Wainwright, Julie Westerman, Daniel Zamarbide

Graphic Designer: Pedro Rufino

Translator: Susana Pomba

Bibliographic display: Ana Barata

Julie Westerman is a senior lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University, working across sculpture, drawing, film, animation, and as a curator.