On 3 March at 6pm, the Atelier-Museu Júlio Pomar inaugurates the curatorial project which won the first edition of the Atelier-Museu Júlio Pomar/EGEAC Prize in 2015, ‘Have you ever noticed how a question mark looks like an ear, and how the question becomes listening?’, curated by Maria do Mar Fazenda.

The title of the exhibition is drawn from a question which Júlio Pomar asked Helena Vaz da Silva during a conversation between the two in 1979.  For Maria do Mar Fazenda, despite the question mark, the title seeks an interlocutor rather than an answer.

Given that exhibitions may arise from questioning, one of the starting points for the curator when designing this curatorial project, which was specifically created for the Atelier-Museu Júlio Pomar, was the question: “What happens to the space if we reverse its name?”

An Atelier-Museum is most commonly a (former) artist’s atelier transformed into a museum, usually dedicated to that particular artist’s work. By reversing the usual order of the terms, a Museum-Atelier refers to a museum which becomes an atelier. In other words, a space to think, do and question the museum itself. The question-title thus expresses a ‘state of mind’ with which to enter the Museu-Atelier, in which a set of works comment on, question and hear the museum institution.