Periple Duet _ Around the Day in 80 Worlds
In this first edition of Periple Duet, the Lisbon Triennale convenes these two LINA Fellows to, from
March to May, create and undergo a thematic itinerary that unites the city where they live with Lisbon and back. The journey provides the raw material for an exercise in observation: crossing borders, experiencing territorial diversity, reducing distances, and expanding boundaries are key elements addressed in a travel journal as an essential tool for continuing education in architecture.
On May 26, Ajda Bračič and Tevi Allan Mensah returned to Sinel de Cordes Palace, Lisbon Triennale headquarters, for the On-the-move residencies Talk to present their experience of traveling through over 20 cities, joining Portuguese professionals for a reflection on architecture and landscape framed by notions of border, fluidity, mobility, or heritage, both material and immaterial.
Project
In this first edition of Periple Duet, the Lisbon Triennale convenes these two LINA Fellows to, from March to May, create and undergo a thematic itinerary that unites the city where they live with Lisbon and back. The journey provides the raw material for an exercise in observation: crossing borders, experiencing territorial diversity, reducing distances, and expanding boundaries are key elements addressed in a travel journal as an essential tool for continuing education in architecture.
On May 26, Ajda Bračič and Tevi Allan Mensah returned to Sinel de Cordes Palace, Lisbon Triennale headquarters, for the On-the-move residencies Talk to present their experience of traveling through over 20 cities, joining Portuguese professionals for a reflection on architecture and landscape framed by notions of border, fluidity, mobility, or heritage, both material and immaterial.
Briefing
A briefing was shared, defining in detail the project Premises, Considerations, Essential rules and Deliverables.
"The architectural journey marked contemporary architectural thinking and production, both because the experience of travelling revealed that knowledge in architecture necessarily incorporates a sensory approach to the built space, and because history was rediscovered as a far more fruitful design tool than a catalogue of styles."
José Fernando Gonçalves, in Em viagem – experiência, conhecimento na arquitectura portuguesa do século XX.
"Travel is a powerful force in shaping the perception of the modern world and plays an ever-growing role within architectural and urban cultures. Inextricably linked to political and ideological issues, travel redefines places and landscapes through new transport infrastructures and buildings. Architecture, in turn, is reconstructed through visual and textual narratives produced by scores of modern travellers — including writers and artists along with architects themselves. In the age of the camera, travel is bound up with new kinds of imaginaries; private records and recollections often mingle with official, stereotyped views, as the value of architectural heritage increasingly rests on the mechanical reproduction of its images."
Deriu, D., Piccoli, E. and Turan Özkaya, B., in Travels in Architectural History, Architectural Histories, 2016.
An exchange responding to the mission of a shared plural, free, and open space. An on the move residence of a territory-crossing itinerary in Europe carried out exclusively through land transportation. Each fellow will propose an approach to the briefing based on their previous research on the launched subject and will implement it by working in close relation with the several departments of the Triennale executive team.
With three rounds, generating a collection of Periple Duet, these original contents will be hosted on the Lisbon Triennale website and sharing platforms.
> Considerations
Reflection on architecture, territory, and borders, along with the geopolitical issues that the experience raises. The journey is the raw material for a narrative-based exercise of observation, analysis, and thinking. Crossing borders, experiencing territorial diversity, reducing distances, and extending limits are key elements addressed in a travel log as an essential tool for continuous training on architecture.
Encourage land mobility suiting the environmental challenges, better using the existing infrastructure, and showing what could be optimised. Materialise an observation that can be useful for urban planning and territorial management to fit with the European Green Deal.
Advocate the freedom of people's circulation and the fluidity in the European territories in favour of a diverse region of peace, movement freedom, and free expression.
The output is a learning tool with a long-lasting effect that can be shared and spread inside and outside European frontiers. Accessibility and inclusivity are also thematics of interest for Triennale activity.
> Essential Rules
For the journey use only collective and terrestrial transport systems, although there can be exceptional water connections. The itinerary connecting the city where you live to Lisbon can be direct but it is also allowed to define a larger, looser thread route considering the chosen concept.
The language must be English. If the output includes interviews, take into account diversity and gender parity. Aim to reach a wider audience avoiding it being tailored only for the architecture community.
Seek to be accessible, relaxed, and engaging storytelling. Maximum length: for critical essay, 10.000 characters; 30 min for each audio or audiovisual essay.
> Deliverables
A written, aural, visual, or combined essay. Can be a single piece or a series of smaller episodes.
Tevi Allan Mensah Periple: Around the day in 80 worlds
Tevi Allan Mensah, whose practice of architecture and artistic creation is divided between the imaginaries in border territories and the potential of architecture as a means of collective communication, departs from Lyon, located 1400 km from Lisbon. He carries out a personal practice shared between the architectural project and artistic creation, where eclectic mediums cohabit : from furniture to the scale of the territory, between built projects and research projects. He is interested in the imaginaries of displaced and borderlands territories, as well as the possibility of architecture as a collective means of communication.
From April 27 to May 10 Tevi Allan Mensah started his journey in Lyon, coming back to his second home in Paris. Passed through 12 cities in 3 countries by such diverse transport means like train, bus, hitchhiking and even walking for 4500 km. His mid-way stop in Lisbon from May 6 to 9 was also an opportunity to analise the project status with the Lisbon Triennale team, but also to better know the city.
