Ana David Mendes is a PhD candidate in Contemporary Art at the University of Coimbra. She specializes in Museology and recently received a PhD Research Scholarship through FCT|CICANT (Centre for Research in Applied Communication, Culture, and New Technologies) for a project entitled Curiositas: Peeping Before Virtual Reality. The project aims to conduct a media archaeology of immersion through VR and Iberian Cosmoramas. Since 2018, she has been the coordinator and artistic curator of BAG- Municipal Gallery of Contemporary Art. She is also the co-founder of m|i|mo (Museum of the Moving Image), where she served as a museum coordinator, scientific and artistic coordinator until 2017. Ana has developed several innovative exhibitions, such as the interactive project Oficina do Olhar [The Eye Workshop], created in 2010, which aims to mediate museum collection contents through new technologies and stimulate artistic and creative re-imaginings of artefacts.
Since 2013, Ana has participated in CICANT research programs related to stereoscopic photography coordinated by Victor Flores. She is currently a co-investigator in the research project The Amazing Optical Machine.
Main research interests
Media Archaeology, Immersive Media, History of photography, Contemporay Art, Archives Digital Humanities
Current project: The Amazing Optical Machine