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What is to be done? Photography, Books, Revolution.

Susana Lourenço Marques

CONFERENCE
APRIL 20TH OF 2026,14.45PM
AUDITORIUM OF EP.1 – ESAD.CR

The conference “What is to be done? Photography, Books, Revolution” proposes a reflection on the role of photography and publishing in the context of the April Revolution and of the political and cultural transformations that followed, viewing images as agents in the construction of narratives and collective imaginaries. Based on on the project Portugal Ano Zero — Livros de Fotografia da Revolução [Portugal Year Zero — Photography Books of the Revolution], Susana L. Marques will analyse publishing practices, forms of circulation and graphic strategies that emerged in a context of political urgency, highlighting the photography book as a space for montage, experimentation and emancipation. Framed by notions of archive and intervention, she will discuss how these visual and editorial forms enable us to rethink the relationship between image, history and action in the present.

Susana Lourenço Marques
Curator and independent editor (PT)

She is an Associate Professor at the Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade do Porto, her PhD is in Communication and Art from Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas. Universidade Nova de Lisboa. She is a researcher at I2ADS/Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade do Porto, and author of the books Ether/um laboratório de Fotografia e História (Dafne, 2018) e Pó, cinza, nevoeiro – um ensaio sobre a ausência” (2018), and co-published  Portugal Ano Zero (2025), Livros de Fotografia em Portugal, da revolução ao Presente (2023), Lágrimas de Crocodilo (2022) e Pedagogy of the streets, Porto 1977 (2018). 

Among the exhibitions she has curated, the following stand out: Quem te ensinou? Ninguém, de Elvira Leite (2016), Opacity of Water (2021), Loss of Aura (Galeria Pedro Oliveira, 2022) Eternal Youth (2023), No tempo dos Dias Lentos (2023), Portugal Ano Zero, Livros de Fotografia em Portugal (2024) e O que elas viram, o que nós vemos (2025).

In 2014, she co-founded the publishing house Pierrot le Fou (www.pierrotlefou.pt)