The first Conference of the Portuguese Contemporary Art Network (RPAC) will take place on Thursday 12 December at the Sines Arts Centre, from 9am to 6pm. Under the theme Art and Contemporaneity: Expression, Relationship and Transformation, the initiative will be open to professionals and students in the field of culture, as well as the general public, with the main target audience being the teams from the facilities that are part of the Network.

With the aim of addressing the various dimensions of contemporary art expression in the spaces in which it operates, the existing and possible dialogues and strategies for the sector’s issues, the event is structured in three panels, plus an introductory moment by researcher, university professor and essayist José Bragança de Miranda.

The panel Contemporary Art as a Space for Individual, Cultural and Identity Expression features artist Pedro Barateiro, architect and curator Carlos Antunes and museologist and researcher Judite Primo. Art historian Catarina Rosendo will moderate the conversation.

The second panel, Contemporary Art as a Space for Local and Global Relations, features artist duo Daniel Moreira and Rita Castro Neves, art historian and curator Sandra Vieira Jürgens and the Mayor of Fundão, Paulo Fernandes, with curator and cultural programme maker Jesse James as moderator.

The panel Contemporary Art as a Space for Human, Social and Political Transformation is constituted by artist Paulo Mendes, curator João Mourão, researcher Giulia Lamoni and professor and curator Liliana Coutinho in the moderation.

The Director-General for the Arts, Américo Rodrigues, will give the conference’s closing speech.

For more information and a detailed programme, see rpac.pt.