Advanced Course in Photography
The Advanced Course in Photography is born in 1992/93, as a substitute for the former post-Basic Course level, the one-year program Applied Photography. In 1995/96 the new ACP will introduce a second year as part of its program. As it happens with the Advanced Course in Visual Arts, the ACP constitutes the Photography department’s answer to the need for a deeper and more extensive development of the training expressly centred on artistic voccations, something that cannot be fully achieved by basic training alone (a 2 year program, in the case of Photography). The program’s implementation is also stimulated by recent conditions in Portuguese cultural life, namely the growing critical and institutional recognition of artistic photography, a fact partially brought about by the emergence of a new wave of authors/photographers (including some of Ar.Co’s ex-students, such as Daniel Blaufuks, João Tabarra, António Júlio Duarte or José Luís Neto). Coordinated by Manuel Silveira Ramos and Sérgio Mah, the structure of the ACP’s program promotes advanced theoretical and practical learning through the development of individual projects, taking into consideration their conceptual, aesthetic and technical aspects. More individualized teaching formats try to potentiate the qualities and the procedural and conceptual expectations of the students, while simultaneously consolidating the knowledge of photography’s more essential procedures and materials, as well as of the asthetic and expressive peculiarities inherent to this specific field of image practice. Three types of lective activities are proposed: “theoretical classes”, concerned mainly with the knowledge and reflection on some of the fundamental themes of the axis photography-image-art; “practical classes”, dedicated to the deepening of the processes and techniques adequate to each project’s specificity; “individual tutorials”, where the methods and the development of each student’s project is analysed and given orientation. Apart from the tutors (who, from the beginning of ACP include Delfim Sardo, Sérgio Mah, Melanie Manchot, Nuno Faria and Pedro Tropa), the course has the occasional participation of guests (namely artists, specialists in some photographic genres and techniques, curators, critics, historians and gallerists). The department also actively promotes the participation of ACP’s students in various exhibitions, whether it is by conceiving/organizing projects in partnerships with other institutions, or by suggesting/selecting student work for exhibitions that ask for the collaboration of Ar.Co’s photography department.
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Exhibition of Ar.Co's Advanced Courses at the Ministry of Finance, Lisbon, 1993. Adriano Miranda, Daniel Blaufuks and Lúcia Vasconcelos.
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Luís Gonçalves (Advanced Course in Photography). Installation/Photographs. Ar.Co, Lisbon. 1994.
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Daniel Malhão (Advanced Course in Photography). from the series "Metereology Part II",1999.
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Paulo Pascoal (Advanced Course in Photography). "Bongo, Natural History Museum, Londres, 1998".
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Onvitation for "Exhibition of Scholarshop Students and Finalists 1998", Ar.Co, Lisbon. Image: Ricardo Martins, student of the Advanced Course in Photography.
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Advanced Course in Photography, class with Manuel Silveira Ramos, Quinta de S. Miguel, Almada, 2006.
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Advanced Course in hotography, studio at Quinta de S. Miguel, Almada, 2006.
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Javier Martinez (Advanced Course in Photography). "Untitled", 2007.
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Advanced Course in Photography, Quinta de S. Miguel, Almada, 2013.
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Worshop "Positive is the negative - sequences for an image", with Francisco Tropa, for the Advanced Course in Photography. Ar.Co Almada, 2015. Image by Nuno Venâncio.
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Worshop "Positive is the negative - sequences for an image", with Francisco Tropa, for the Advanced Course in Photography. Ar.Co Almada, 2015. Image by Ana Filipa Martins.
