Departing from the general theme of the 21st Milan Triennale, this issue of PLI Arte & Design is arranged around three main topics: relationships between ideology, form and content; on curatorship as a space for cultural diplomacy and discursive practice; finally, a third set of content considers the work of two major references in Portuguese contemporary architecture: Pancho Guedes and Eduardo Souto de Moura. The editors’ intention has been for this PLI issue to be a continuation of the three previous ones.

The magazine PLI Arte & Design emerged within the Portuguese editorial context in 2011, in an obvious countercycle: within a crisis context, there emerged a new editorial project; within a growth context of digital editions and recession of printed editions, PLI asserted the importance of its material dimension; at a moment where a profusion of light and global thinking could be diagnosed, PLI asserted the idea of standing out as a location for radicalizing project-related thought and, at the same time, as a field for interdisciplinary openness from the territories of contemporary art and design.

Published by ESAD College of Art and Design, and with José Bártolo and Sérgio Afonso as the authors of its editorial project and its publishers, PLI was, right from the outset, understood to be an editorial project capable of articulating a regularly printed publication– though with no set issue frequency – a related webplatform, and a punctual programming of eventsor situations linked to a critical understanding ofeditorial production in arts and design. The digitalmedia enables not only expanding its editorial functionalities, but also working concepts directingthe publication, such as ideas involving participation, co-authorship, network, community, and co-design.

Produced within the context of ESAD, the magazine is not limited to a printed space for anchoring a school’s production, but, rather, reflects the consciousness of a school of higher education in art and design in forging openings, folds, and connections to what is done by art and design in contemporary times. An art and design school should be not only a laboratory – literally, a venue where experiments are conducted – but also a mediation space – and mediation is a critical exercise, which presupposes choosing and deliberating, just like editing.

The magazine’s title, PLI, evokes the Deleuzean concept of folding, which is assumed as a metaphor and the operational concept of a project that critically seeks to think and act on identities, connections, and cross-links between artistic and project-related knowhow and doing – which shape contemporary times. Each issue of the magazine is organized on a topic basis. The different topics –Encounter; Enthusiasm; Hot & Cool; Production – were addressed through different critical, disciplinary, and ideological approaches. While featuring the autonomy of each issue, the idea was still to seek to assert, in particular, the identity of the editorial project, which called for a subtle sense of continuity among the topics addressed.

The 6th edition of Pli Art & Design is on sale in the ESAD store and in the school office.

presentations

Circo de Ideias +
5 may, 07:00 PM
Rua da Boavista 330, Porto

ESAD World Graphics Day +
27 apr, 05:00 PM
ESAD auditorium

The Reinvented Object/The Reinvented City +
14 apr, 05:00 PM
Milan Triennale

Créditos