Joana Rafael is an architect, researcher and lecturer. Her work focuses on (issues of) ecology, human geography and natural sciences, encompassing contemporary culture, media studies, art and technology. She combines architecture as a discipline of thought and design practice, reflecting on the boundaries of buildings, infrastructures and (radiological-)contaminated territories. Engages in speculative thinking and writing to develop a critical distance from anthropocentric understandings and attend to reciprocal relationships between humans and nature. Joana teaches Contextual Studies and Contemporary Culture-related courses. She is a member of CEGOT (Center for Studies in Geography and Spatial Planning) and CEAA (Centro de Estudos Arnaldo Araújo). Joana is a cofounder of REFINERY BOARD.
Domestic Dusts
+ TXT - Other Writings
SITE-SPECIFIC WRITING
LEAFLET
commissioned for Valise en Carton, an itinerant exhibition of riso prints curated by Inês Moreira and Parábola Critica, Associação Cultural
Household dust contains the archeological remains and trace materials of our bodily existence and of the city we live in. The clothes we wear, what we eat, of our pets and plants, remnants of the present and of the past, of lovers, the houses we inhabit as well as the erosion of our communities' mass-produced and mass-consumed material realities and the environments that hosts our houses. It hangs in the air, migrates in shape-shifting (aggregative and disintegrating) forms, gravitates towards and settles on (bordering) surfaces, amalgamates with moisture to become dirt.
In its eternal return, dust chronicles our individual activities and collective lives, turning surfaces into domestic battlefields, screens for inscription and projection of fantasies. Channeling Pollock, Dreaming of Shrimp and Cherry Blossoms document and play with these interpretations – disclosing dust as a kind of phenomenal community, a place where parts of all us, living beings and inanimate entities incessantly gather. Composing Domestic Dusts, (from Portuguese Pós Domésticos), the projects explore multi-dimensional alien realm in which we can find dreamlike formations through an animistic lens, as well as the realism of our fears in astonishing detail - related to the remains, fragments and particles – the ensemble of tiny units.