"How to silence a poet"
Exhibition and Performances
Susana Mendes Silva at the National Museum of Contemporary Art
June 10 to August 30

The book "Decadência" by the poet Judith Teixeira was apprehended and burned in 1923, at the Convento de São Francisco, in the old installations of the Civil Government of Lisbon, with entrance through Rua Capelo, today part of the National Museum of Contemporary Art. As Vítor Silva Tavares says, after 1927 Judith temporarily disappears from Portugal and there is a "definitive muting of a voice so incisively thrown into agitation". But the destructive power that silences people and artists is often reversed by the practice of maintaining itself as a ghostly presence over the decades.

For As Things Founded in Silence, a program under the artistic direction of Marta Rema, the artist Susana Mendes Silva developed “How to silence a poet”, a project proposed and immediately supported by the National Museum of Contemporary Art, which integrated it in its programming for 2020.

In addition to the Exhibition, in the Multipurpose Room of MNAC, the project also has two performances - "Translation # 1" and "Translation # 2" - and the performative reading of the conference "De mim", which the poet and novelist Judith Teixeira published in 1926.

Susana Mendes Silva (Lisbon, 1972) is a visual artist and performer. His work includes a component of research and archival practice, which is translated into works whose references
historical and political aspects materialize in exhibitions, actions and performances through the most diverse means of production. Its universe contemplates and reconfigures diverse social contexts without losing sight of the individual's uniqueness. His psychological intimacy or his voice are often vehicles for the dissemination and reception of poetic and political messages that summon and reactivate the memory of participants and spectators. Susana studied Sculpture at FBAUL and attended the PhD program in Visual Arts (Studio Based Research) at Goldsmiths College, London, having a scholarship from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. She holds a PhD in Contemporary Art, from the College of Arts of the University of Coimbra, with a thesis based on her performative practice - “Performance as an intimate encounter”. She is Assistant Professor at the University of Évora in the Architecture course
Landscape designer.

Performances:
Reading “De mim”, with Marta Rema - National Museum of Contemporary Art
June 21, 3:30 pm

Translation # 1 with Alda Calvo - Faculty of Fine Arts UL
Date and time to be announced.

Translation # 2 with Patrícia Carmo - Studios Victor Córdon
Date and time to be announced.

Creation support: OPART - Victor Córdon Studios