March to September 2015

The fifth Education Service pack presents the activities carried out to accompany the exhibition Without Caprice or Presumption – Fado according to Júlio Pomar & Recent Donations, which was held at the Atelier-Museu from March to September 2015.

Taking the works in the show as its starting point, this educational project at the Atelier-Museu, which puts on an individual programme for each exhibition, featured activities and workshops for children, young people and adults, with the aim of raising awareness of modes of visual expression among the general public and, in particular, of the work of Júlio Pomar.

Alongside the guided tours and workshops open to the public, a number of activities aimed at specific groups also took place, such as the workshop for the pupils of the Escola Sampaio Garrido, where pupils were issued with the challenge of producing illustrations for a story written by Paulo Condessa, which in turn refers to an exhibition featuring works by Júlio Pomar. The writer attended the start of the sessions, taking to the pupils about his literary career. Further sessions took place either in the Atelier-Museu or on school premises. This resulted in a book of illustrations (available in digital format here), and also drew attention to the important role of illustrator that Júlio Pomar played throughout his career, which saw him collaborate with myriad leading figures from other genres, including writers, poets, illustrators and editors.

Due to the fortuitous overlap in scope with this exhibition, by virtue of its strong colour component, another ‘Atelier: Colour’ workshop was held, led by Elsa Gonçalves, with the Youth Recreation Centre of Associação Moinho da Juventude da Cova da Moura.

This collaboration with the association took place within the exhibition space, surrounded by the works themselves, and allowed the group to visit the Atelier-Museu, displacing it from its habitual neighbourhood, where it hosts numerous cultural initiatives. As such, this workshop reversed roles, challenging the participants to occupy another space, experience another context and get involved in fresh discussions.

As part of the partnership with the Church of Santa Catarina, which includes the use of its library, a new workshop comprising 5 drawing sessions was devised. This workshop, led by Berta Ehrlich, mainly centred around the exhibition Without Caprice or Presumption: Fado according to Júlio Pomar & Recent Donations, and was aimed at those aged 16 or over.

Without forgetting the aspect of movement that is so crucial to the work of Júlio Pomar, and which is also apparent in some of the works in this exhibition, in particular drawings featuring linked or multiplied figures that suggest motion, an animation film workshop was also held with the director Isabel Aboim Inglês and the artist Rui Horta Pereira, open to the general public. This workshop, which brought together several generations of participants in a joint learning process, examined the animated films produced by the instructors and discussed various techniques that are inherent to animated film.

A partnership was established with Apordoc (Associação pelo Documentário), with which the Atelier-Museu developed a cycle of documentaries about art, entitled Statues Die Too, presented and on display in the exhibition space during the month of July.

This partnership gave rise to a larger one, this time involving the Lisbon Municipal Galleries, which enabled the organisers to hold an art cinema cycle during the 2015–2016 academic year in the auditoriums of the Rainha D. Leonor and Colégio Passos Manuel school group.

The programme consisted of films created by artists and other directors, and involved conversation and discussion sessions with pupils from the first cycle of basic education all the way up to secondary, from the schools involved in the partnership.

This pack also includes an audio file with a recording of the poem The Crow by Edgar Allan Poe, which featured in the performance by Ana Teresa Magalhães and Mariana Ramos on International Museum Day, against the backdrop of the exhibition Without Caprice or Presumption: Fado according to Júlio Pomar & Recent Donations. The exhibition included the painting The Crow by Júlio Pomar which illustrated an edition of the poem and its respective translation.