Wood
Headed by João Hogan in 1978/79, the Wood Workshop is an expressive example of Ar.Co’s experimental dimension being extended, in certain cases, to the very definition and implementation of its areas of activity. Wood was a brief episode that (like Glass, Silkscreen Printing and Weaving) could not last. Still, it portrays an attitude that in other cases produces projects which are not only solid and lasting but pioneering (it happens with Studio Goldsmithing/Jewellery, originating on the arrival in Portugal of Tereza Seabra and Alexandra Serpa Pimental, accompanied by their own equipments and tools and anxious to put their knowledge and learning experience to the test). If most sectors/departments are born of the will to experiment and to develop areas of creative practice whose presence in an art school is “obvious”, Ar.Co decides to give a chance to less obvious training areas simply because, at a given moment, there is competence and there is desire. That is clearly the case with Wood, born of João Hogan’s skills as a cabinet maker (an art that he learned and practiced between the ages of 16 and 25), just as it will be the case with Printing (where Hogan was equally proficient and did in fact provide guidance at Ar.Co). Pedro Furtado Ramos, whose talent is revealed as a student of Hogan’s is in charge of the Wood experiment in 1979/80, but the sector is extinguished at the end of that year for lacking finantial viability.
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Wood Workshop at Ar.Co, Lisbon. João Hogan, 1978-79.
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Wood Workshop, Ar.Co, Lisbon, 1978/79.
