Galeria Municipal do PortoGaleria Municipal do Porto

Programmes
The Shape of a Circle in the Dream of a Fish
What is a sense of self, when landscapes and beings exist in co-evolution and co-habitation? What manners have we developed to attune ourselves to the various untranslatable experiences and unknowable ways of being? How do we investigate if mountains dream of us as we do of them? If we know that the average human has between three and eight dreams per night, how many are the interspecies dreams that shape our world’s nights? Do fish dream of themselves? Do butterflies have lucid dreams? Is electric sheep what androids really dream of?  
 
Investigating how magic, art, science and dreams constitute one another and manifest themselves across all beings, The Shape of a Circle in the Dream of a Fish dwells in those spiritual, creative and scientific practices that invite us to re-evaluate how we share this planet with all creatures and life forms. 
 
The festival investigates the role dreams play in our lives. Understanding dreams as both sleep-time experiences and as threshold zones in which the cogito and the oneiric coexist, the festival gathers architects, artists, historians, philosophers, musicians and scientists to share their knowledge and tell the stories that celebrate the entanglement between self, mind and planet.  
 
The Shape of a Circle in the Dream of a Fish begins with a two-day gathering in Porto and will continue in London via podcasts, videos and other releases through to early 2023. Participants include Yussef Agbo-Ola/Olaniyi Studio, Federico Campagna, Nicola S. ClaytonOnome EkehCru EncarnaçãoAlex JordanSophie Lunn-RockliffeNahumHatis Noit, and Rain Wu and includes a screening of films by artists Mariana Caló and Francisco Queimadela, Rosalind Fowler, Derek Jarman, Dominique Knowles, Ben Rivers and Himali Singh Soin

The visual identity of the project was created by Giles Round.
 
The Shape of a Circle in the Dream of a Fish is organised in collaboration with Serpentine’s General Ecology project in partnership with Galeria da Biodiversidade – Centro Ciência Viva. It is the fifth in the festival series, The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish, which thinks about intelligence, sentience and existence across more-than-human worlds. Previous editions have addressed animal, human and artificial consciousness, language and interspecies communication (Language, ZSL London Zoological Society, May 2018); interior multitude, swarming organisms, symbiosis and entanglements (We Have Never Been One, Ambika P3, University of Westminster, December 2018); plant sentience, intelligence, communication with the vegetal world and forms of eroticism, mysticism and healing (PLANTSEX and With Plants, Cinema Lumière / French Institute and EartH Hackney, April/May 2019); and the teeming, entangled life of the ground, land, soil and Earth (The Understory of the Understory, online at the specially created website themind.fish, designed by artist Giles Round, December 2020).  
 
The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish series is curated by Lucia Pietroiusti (Founder, General Ecology Project and Strategic Advisor, Ecology, Serpentine) and Filipa Ramos (Artistic Director, Galeria Municipal do Porto). Editions 1-4 were co-curated and produced with Kostas Stasinopoulos (Curator, Live Programmes, Serpentine) and Holly Shuttleworth (Producer). 

 
galeria

Sunday, November 27

Screening - The Shape of a Circle in the Dream of a Fish

ALL IS LEAF

Ben Rivers
ljen / London, 2022.  
16mm film, colour, sound, 06'42'' 

Derek JarmanA Journey to Avebury, 1973. 
Super 8mm film, colour, sound, 10'00'' / Presented as a 2K digital scan with a music track by Coil

Dominique Knowles
, Tahlequah, 2019  
HD video, colour, sound, 12'07''  
 
Himali Singh SoinRitual Telepathy at the Relic Chamber, 2019.  
HD video, colour, sound, 07'11''
 
Mariana Caló and Francisco Queimadela, Palomacia, 2022.  
16mm film transferred to 2K, colour, sound, 05'23''
 
Rosalind Fowler, all is leaf, so to amplify the wonder, 2020.  
16mm film and digital video, colour, sound, 12'55'' 
 
 
 
Free entrance subject to room capacity.

Age classification to be defined soon.

Location: Hall of Biodiversity – Ciência Viva Center | Museum of Natural History of the U.Porto

Rua do Campo Alegre 1191, Porto

How to get there:
Bus STCP: N.º 200, 204, 207 e 504 (Stops: Casa das Artes and Planetário)
Metro: Casa da Música (about 25 min. on foot)
galeria

Saturday, November 26

Day 1 - The Shape of a Circle in the Dream of a Fish

15:15 - 12 Dreams as Coral Hair - Yussef Agbo-Ola (Olaniyi Studio)
 
15:45 - Welcome Lucia Pietroiusti & Filipa Ramos
 
16:00 - A Fish’s Sense of SelfAlex Jordan
 
16:30 - How to Dream Better - Federico Campagna
 
17:00 - Restless Souls and Porous Bodies: Dreaming between Animals, Demons and Humans in Antiquity - Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe

BREAK 

18:15 - Untitled Kingdom - Onome Ekeh
 
18:45 - As Above, So Below - Rain Wu
 
19:15 - Conversation with Alex Jordan, Federico Campagna, Filipa Ramos, Lucia Pietroiusti, Onome Ekeh, Rain Wu, Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe & Yussef Agbo-Ola
 
BREAK

22:00 - Aura - Hatis Noit


PULSATING / IN PERMANENCE
Aura - Hatis Noit
Free entrance subject to room capacity.

Age classification: more than 6 years old.

Location: Hall of Biodiversity – Ciência Viva Center | Museum of Natural History of the U.Porto

Rua do Campo Alegre 1191, Porto

How to get there:
Bus STCP: N.º 200, 204, 207 e 504 (Stops: Casa das Artes and Planetário)
Metro: Casa da Música (about 25 min. on foot)
galeria

Saturday, November 26, 22h00

Concert by Hatis Noit - The Shape of a Circle in the Dream of a Fish

AURA

Hatis Noit is a japanese vocal performer hailing from distant Shiretoko in Hokkaido, who now resides in London. Hatis Noit's accomplished range is astonishingly self-taught, inspired by everything she could find from Gagaku — Japanese classical music — and operatic styles, Bulgarian and Gregorian chanting, to avant-garde and pop vocalists.
Free entrance subject to room capacity.

Age classification: more than 6 years old.

Location: Hall of Biodiversity – Ciência Viva Center | Museum of Natural History of the U.Porto

Rua do Campo Alegre 1191, Porto

How to get there:
Bus STCP: N.º 200, 204, 207 e 504 (Stops: Casa das Artes and Planetário)
Metro: Casa da Música (about 25 min. on foot)

Image credits: Dinis Santos
galeria

Sunday, November 27

Day 2 - The Shape of a Circle in the Dream of a Fish

16:15 - Welcome Lucia Pietroiusti & Filipa Ramos
 
16:25 - And yet, it's not hopeless - Nahum
 
16:55 - Teaching Old Jays New Tricks - Nicola S. Clayton
 
17:25 - All is Leaf - Mariana Caló and Francisco Queimadela, Rosalind Fowler, Derek Jarman, Dominique Knowles, Ben Rivers and Himali Singh Soin
 
18:30 - The Back of Five - Cru Encarnação 
 
PULSATING / IN PERMANENCE
Aura - Hatis Noit
 
Free entrance subject to room capacity.

Age classification: more than 6 years old.

Location: Hall of Biodiversity – Ciência Viva Center | Museum of Natural History of the U.Porto

Rua do Campo Alegre 1191, Porto

How to get there:
Bus STCP: N.º 200, 204, 207 e 504 (Stops: Casa das Artes and Planetário)
Metro: Casa da Música (about 25 min. on foot)
 

Sign up our newsletter