About “Landscapes of Care” and how contemporary photography can help to heal a broken planet

• Autor(a) principal: Pedro Neto
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.24840/2183-8976_2022-0007_0001_1
• topic: Landscapes of Care; Contemporary Photography; Broken Planet; Architecture, City and Territory

“Architecture in its broadest sense provides shelter indispensable to the continuationof human life and survival. This is evidently a form of care. Yet historically, architecturehas not been considered a form of caring labor. Despite this fundamental functionof architecture to provide protection for humans from sun, wind, snow or rain, andto give the support necessary for maintaining the vital functions of everyday living,the idea of the architect is linked to autonomy and independent genius rather thanconnectedness, dependency, social reproduction and care giving.”Elke Krasny1 “(...) architects have no time to lose to work on alternative models that offer paths toreach social equity within the continued intense metropolitanization of settlementstructures. Given the changing nature of societies, more differentiated forms of cohabitation;greater demand for closer spatial relations of work-living-recreation;the renewal of urban farming; decentralized forms of harvesting renewable energy;leaner and smaller production facilities; all these transformations should leadto a change in the conventional zoning of uses; to a search for building and urbantypologies that may be grafted on as much as possible to existing fabric and that willyet liberate future generations from the burden of the suburban era.”Wilfried Wang2   With this 7th Volume of Sophia Journal we initiate our third thematic cycle “Landscapes of Care”, addressing contemporary photography and visual practices that focus on how architecture understood in a wide sense can help to heal a broken planet3. The concept of landscapes of care has increasingly been adopted by diverse areas of study, from health geography to the arts and architecture4. It allows us to understand architecture, city and territory as living and inclusive organisms5, constituted by multifaceted landscapes with complex social and organisational spatialities6, as well as exploring the concepts of space and place for care within a transdisciplinary research environment7. Significant changes are taking place in diverse physical spaces all around the world and the world is growing in complexity as Daniel Innerarity8 points out. For this complex world of post-politics ideals, we need ambitious visions for the future and at the same time to trigger operational paths that are able to reform society, in a creative and collaborative manner, towards a better world. (...)