PONTE - International Meeting on Fashion and Performance
Associação Via Criativa - Design para o Desenvolvimento Local
Portugal
PONTE means bridge, standing for a creative laboratory that connects voices in fashion design cross-bordering with art and creative industries, to preserve cultural identities that weren’t leveled by capitalism and globalization. PONTE acts as a socio-cultural platform at a library (Alcântara, Lisbon) that has Resistance and Democracy as motto. Rooted in local voices in an inclusive manner, it brings innovative practices from abroad who resonate with them. Personal and collective perspectives and academic inputs are put to test in a healthy exchange of critical knowledge and artistic practice.
PONTE holds a fashion show, performances, workshops, colloquium, fashion films, exhibitions, uniting recent graduates, artists and academics to share ideas and projects within multiple views and practices on heritage, social sustainability and sociocultural changes. The event that aimed to join in Lisbon works form Portugal and Latin America, has involved the Mediterranean with Egypt and Spain. Virtually, it added other countries in theoretical discussions and fashion films. PONTE empowers synergies between creatives, institutions, researchers and the global market, while revealing communities in their unique characteristics. We have never been so exposed and connected, never has hypermodern speed demanded so much creatively or quickly destabilized recent achievements. What means to imagine and innovate today? Who are we and how do we reinvent ourselves? Closing the celebrations of the 50th anniversary the Carnations’ Revolution in the triennium 2024-26, we will celebrate the renewal of cycles in democratic societies and expose how fashion and performance do face ecological and technological challenges and innovate upon social transformations, human identities and hybridizations.