Foto: Peter Schulthess, 2017

The conferences

 

 

 

Conferences in Portimão and Porto in 2024
Next conference in 2026 in Geneva and Lausanne



In the framework of the portuguese prison photo project, a conference was held in Porto on 24  and 25 October 2024. Around 150 people participated and almost thirty lectures were given, some in parallel sessions. At the end of the scientific event, the vernissage of the three-volume publication the portuguese prison photo project took place in the presence of the Swiss ambassador. The speakers agreed to continue the work, plan to publish the proceedings on prison architecture and organize another conference on the topic in Geneva and Lausanne in 2026.

On 24 and 25 April 2024 a previous conference took place in Portimão. The first day was dedicated to political detention in Portugal and the detention regimes under the dictatorships and the opening of the new exhibition of the portuguese prison photo project. The next day, the conference continued by addressing the impact of the Carnation Revolution on detention regimes in Portugal after 1974.

Prison Systems and Prison Architecture: how are they related? A European Perspective

24 and 25 October 2024

University of Porto

As one of the axioms of the portuguese prison photo project is to protect the personalities of those deprived of their liberty, the 2024 exhibition, as the previous ones presented in 2017, 2019, and 2022, focused on the buildings and the living spaces. The photographs show these spaces where persons have to live and are required to share their lives in cramped surroundings, unfriendly cells, and environments where they must stay for long periods. These photographs explore lived architecture, question how prison architecture is conceived, and point toward the importance of researching the design of new prisons.

Given this assumption, this conference aimed to explore the relationship established between prison architecture and design and some central elements inherent to the functioning and experience of prison systems, such as the process of adaptation to incarceration, the emotions experienced by inmates, or the impact that these factors have on execution of sentence and prison management.




In parallel, a projection of photographs by Luis Barbosa was presented in the basement of the School of Criminology's two “prison cells”.

The conference was organized at the Faculty of Law of the University of Porto by the professors Pedro Sousa, Gilda Santos, Cândido da Agra, Mélanie Mesquita Tiago, in cooperation with Daniel Fink.

Prisons and Regimes of Detention in Portugal: before and after 1974

19 and 20 April 2024

Auditorium of the Museu de Portimão.

On the day of the inauguration of the new exhibition of the portuguese prison photo project, on Friday, 19 April 2024, a first series of talks addressed the topic of prisons, detention regimes and life in prison before the Carnation revolution of 1974. Three presentations dealt with the political prisoners and their living conditions. Finally, the prison conditions of common law prisoners before the revolution was discussed in the last conference.

In the second part of the first day, the project ideas and goals as well as the previous realisations were presented. Then the photographer Luis Barbosa and the exhibition designer and photographer Peter Schulthess spoke about their photographic approach. Finally, professor Gilda Santos commented the results of a research project on visitors carried out by the School for Criminology during two of the previous exhibitions. The inauguration of the exhibition took place at the end of the day.



On the second day of the conference, on 20 April 2024, the focus was put on the influence of the 1974 revolution on prison conditions and the evolution of the prison regime in Portugal. In addition to representatives of the Portuguese prison administration, speakers of national and international monitoring bodies (NPM; CPT; SPT) presented their views on the more recent evolution of detention regimes in Portugal.