“Are humans better at creating things or destroying them?” (Débora Ferreira, 10th grade), “What does dying feel like?” (Frederik Holling, Year 10), “Are there limits to our thinking?” (Inga Lopes, 11th grade) or “Can life end before death?” (Daniel Ramos, 8th grade). These are some of the questions, written by students of the International College of Vilamoura, that can be read in shop windows on Rua Maria Campina, in Loulé.
The illustration of these questions in 16 shop windows on that shopping street was done by Year 9 and Year 9 students, within the scope of the subject Arts and Philosophy for Young People.
These are questions that came out of the XNUMXth edition of the Questions Festival of the International College of Vilamoura (CIV) and now jump from the school sphere to the community sphere, in an exercise of questioning and provocation, supported by the Municipality of Loulé.
The Festival takes place at CIV every year, promoted by Laurinda Silva, a teacher, and Dina Adão, a librarian, who now goes out into the street in the year when she blows out 10 candles.
«This questioning exercise is an apparently simple task», says Laurinda Silva.
«Although it materializes only in the production of a sentence – a question, in this case – it fully mobilizes the knowledge that its author has in the direction of the one he wants to have. This knowledge, learned at school or outside it, incorporates a dimension of natural curiosity in wanting to unravel things, the real, but also a dimension of attention and care for the world. And, in that sense, it becomes a political act originating from the construction of the world, the way you want it to be», he adds.
In addition to the illustration of shop windows, the X edition of the Festival of Questions will soon circulate, materialized in banners in the urban transport network of Loulé, Catch me! (Loulé Concelho Global), with some of the most pertinent questions of this exercise.
The questions will also give rise to a group exhibition, to which artists of the most varied expressions were invited, and which will be on display, in May, at the Aderita Artistic Space Gallery, in Vale do Lobo.
«The celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Festival of Questions reinforces the importance of promoting a culture of critical spirit, the importance of questioning the world, an act that triggers the construction of knowledge. The question will always be a driving force, fueled by the desire to learn, enhancing the autonomy of thought and, therefore, individual and collective development. The Questions Festival has made very significant contributions to the areas that are systemic educational priorities of the CIV», declared Cidália Ferreira Bicho, Pedagogical Director of the CIV.
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