msdm a nomadic house-studio-gallery for photographic art and curatorial research, an expanded practice of the artist's book, photobook publishing and peer-to-peer collaboration created by contemporary artist paula roush
participatory architectures
The past persists in the present in the form of a dream (participatory architectures, archive and revolution) installation with photography, archive, architectural materials and newspaper, 2012-14
Outdated remains of a 20th century architectural utopia, a village developed as part of national housing projecte code-named SAAL, the experimental programme of peoples' right to place emerged in the short experience of participatory democracy during the Portuguese revolution.
Paradigm Store, 5 Howick Place, London, Sept-November 2014
New photoworks commissioned by HS Projects a curatorial project reflecting on the haunting gap between 20th century modernist utopias and historical matrixes that have ripped apart modernist myths of progress. 5 Howick Place, London
Seismopolite journal of Art and Politics (issue 3: Reimagining the political geography of “place” and “space”)
Arles Photography Open Salon, An Eye for an Ear, Galerie Huit, 2012
Brighton Photo Biennial 12 Photobook show at Brighton’s Jubilee Library throughout the Biennial (6 October – 4 November 2012)
Urban Dreams at the CCA, October 2012, Bulgaria
Brighton Photo Fringe, Phoenix Brighton, 6-11 November 2012
Guatephoto, Guatemala City, November 2012
This Is Not A Gateway Festival, Bishopsgate Institute, London, January 2013
Chaos of memories- Surviving archives and the ruins of history according to the found photo foundation
3rd Dimension Paradigm Store at Howick Place
Operacoes SAAL, Alvaro Siza e a Persistencia de São Victor: Falhar, Falhar Novamente, Falhar Melhor
The past persists in the present in the form of a dream (participatory architectures, archive and revolution)
Moving round the corner, the viewer is immediately drawn in to paula roush’s complex, absorbing installation, Participatory Architectures (2014) which almost acts as a cri de coeur.
This work is based on the period after the coup d’état in Portugal in the early 1970s when there was a surge of utopian building projects and creativity.
Then after the economic setbacks of 2008, Portugal began selling these communes to developers, effectively for land clearance. Here, laid out dispassionately on makeshift tables that span the room, are poignant photographs, objects and memorabilia that resonate with disillusionment. roush’s bricks are a metaphor for construction /destruction and also challenge the government with rebellion. She creates individual collages of all forty-one houses on the Apeadeiro estate in southern Portugal, and with a bitter irony, wraps them in the same ribbon the government uses to fasten its official documents.