Salas-fantasma: an artistic investigation into the early 20th century cinema theatres in Lisbon
Amadea Kovi

Salas-fantasma is an ongoing interdisciplinary research project and an artistic investigation, focused on visual aesthetic elements connecting three of Lisbon’s former cinema theatres with their cinematic history from the early 20th century: Pathé/Imperial (1925), Cine Royal (1929) and Animatógrafo do Rossio (1907).
Each of these buildings, located in a different historically significant neighbourhood of Lisbon, is in the present moment no longer engaged by a cinematic function. Nonetheless, their history remains visible through visual signs, such as a clock on the wall carrying the former cinema’s name, faded and cracked facade where a sign used to hang, or elaborate door frame designs.
Building on the theoretical framework of speculative aesthetics, this ongoing investigation takes these visual and aesthetic elements as a point of departure for a methodological approach engaged in a dialogue between artistic and documentative practices of photography and drawing, opening up potential for speculative, alternative and imaginative possibilities of engaging with archive, memory, history and heritage.