Merve Pakyürek e Marc Kean Paker - Entrevista

Merve Pakyürek e Marc Kean Paker são os fundadores do Lisbon Art Weekend, que acontece entre 13 e 15 de novembro. Falaram-nos da iniciativa, da edição passada, das limitações encontradas, e do panorama da arte contemporânea em Portugal. Optámos por manter a lingua inglesa, em que a entrevista foi feita.

What is “Lisbon Art Weekend” and what are its main objectives?
Lisbon Art Weekend was founded last year with a wish to increase the visibility of portuguese art, widen the audience and in the long term or eventually attract international collectors. The goal of the event is to invite the public to explore the richness of the Lisbon art scene.
This year we have 26 participants with more than 80 local and international artists.

It will be a three-day event, the second edition will take place on 13th, 14th and 15th of November. And during these days, participating spaces will host at least one event and keep their doors open for the public to experience the exhibitions, works and themes addressed.

It is a nonprofit project, and as such, we do not ask remuneration from participants or visitors
Lisbon art scene is becoming stronger every year and is definitely worth a tour. Participant spaces are open and free to anybody. They offer exhibitions, talks, performances and other activities, which constitutes a tremendous cultural offer for any interested citizen.

We are also organizing guided tours (with the support of Arco Foundation) and we are having a Lisbon Art Weekend art talk on Sunday afternoon. Both events will be online this year.

What are your takeaways from the first edition?
Our main takeaway, was that for a first edition, the potential we were hoping for had been realized. Indeed, the number of visitors across all participating space and parallel activities culminated to above 1500 people. Although we had a strong feeling it would be successful, we did not know what to expect exactly, and seeing that most events of the weekend were above the visitors capacity that we had in mind was a pleasant surprise.

What is involved in curating the participation of 26 spaces and of over 65 artists?
A few projects highlighted during LAW are based on personal invitations, according to quality considerations, and under counsel of our advisory board and selection committee. And on an open call application that is open to all. The submissions from the open call are then revised and selected by our selection committee, and promoted throughout all of LAW's communication channels.
It was very important to us to have a selection committee to select the various participants. The idea behind that is that we want the selection to be well executed and non-biased. The members whom we have asked to participate in the committee were chosen carefully and include professionals who are knowledgeable of the local art scene. Individually the members determined various grades through several criteria. With some margin for commenting and appreciating the intricate differences of the applicants. We then aggregated them, and included a limited number of participants, who were above a certain threshold, to the Art Weekend.

Following the selection of the various participating spaces, the main duties of the Art Weekend is then to organize, promote and coordinate the various exhibitions into a cohesive event that constitutes the most important part of the work behind the event.

How has the pandemic affected this year’s event?
As it is the case for most of the event sector, the pandemic has been a strong obstacle to the elaboration of LAW's second edition. To begin with, art spaces themselves have been affected by the situation, some international artists have been unable to travel which had a strong impact on delays and alterations of exhibitions.
Lisbon Art Weekend's own event structure had to adapt as well, we had originally planned an opening cocktail, an Art talk on Sunday and guided tours (ARCO GalleryWalk) to be experienced in person, however under the current circumstances we decided to not host the cocktail this year, and to have the Art talk and guided tours online instead.
More recently, following the government's decision to establish new restrictive hours (especially for Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th November), we are now coordinating the program with all participating spaces to adapt to the new restrictions.
It is a difficult year to organize the event, but we did not want to cancel or postpone it, as we feel that in spite of the current situation there is a strong need to keep the cultural connection alive and an ongoing discussion that holds continuity. As such, we believe it is important to establish a yearly rendez-vous for visitors and participants alike, to count on.
We are confident that the event's structure is appropriate for the current situation, as visitors are encouraged to walk in the open air between gallery visits, and it is not a centralized event where all visitors will meet in one single enclosed space.

What parallel activities can we expect?
As mentioned above, parallel activities this year will be online. The opening cocktail was cancelled due to the pandemic situation, and the Sunday Art talk and and guided tours will be hosted online instead of in person.

How do you compare the Lisbon contemporary art scene with other european cities?
The art scene in Lisbon is experiencing some kind of renaissance that is not reflected enough in terms of its local and international visibility.
It seems to us that the fact that the scene is still human sized compared to other cities in Europe is an opportunity for visitors and participants alike to experience its growth and benefit from the scale of the experience. It is actually one of the main reasons we insisted in altering the Gallery Weekend format to a more inclusive Art Weekend. In order to preserve, to a relative extent, the scene’s authenticity as well as to encourage its development.

What’s your immediate wish for the arts panorama in Portugal?
Our immediate wish would be to enable a more local and international visibility for the arts panorama in Portugal. So that visitors could benefit from the experience relating to the exhibitions, and participating spaces and artists achieve a more widespread recognition that would help their development.