Solo exhibition

Monopoly

  • Ana Aragão

28 June - 10 August 2024

UNDERDOGS GALLERY
Rua Fernando Palha, Armazém 56 – Lisbon, Portugal

"Monopoly" is a game made up of rules, tensions and power struggles, in which you have to move up the board in order to buy property and you have to bankrupt others in order to win. This game serves as the conceptual basis for the creation of this series of imaginary cities by Ana Aragão. A reconciliation of dystopias and utopias that uses apparent rigorous drawing as a tool.

The game and playfulness coexist with a reflection on social issues such as the precariousness of homes, minimal and shared spaces, and the speculation on housing in the city that has fattened up the real men in top hats. A reflection on multidimensional personal space - from the practical side of domestic and family life to the place of emotions, intimacy and imagination.

The tracery of images created by the artist is above all a manifesto to reclaim the space of imagination as an inalienable right to a complete life. We don't find a representation of architectural reality, but imaginary cities that renounce time and place in concrete: in these, we see capsule houses that make us wonder if the future has already arrived, trees that cut through the sky to claim an immaterial space for the presence of nature, and perspectives that emphasise the smallness of the individual when excluded from the sum of all the parts.

Press Release