Artworks, especially those that comprise documentary material, can offer a particularly challenge to our sense of reality. While the indexical link to what they address grants images and sounds a specific credibility, the artist’s aesthetic, thematic and political choices and self-reflexive stance may generate a critical assessment of the very constitution of reality. At such point, art meets philosophy. To reflect on the relationship between the factual world and its subjective understanding, questioning hegemonic claims to objectivity and problematising the inherent contradictions of society are inherently philosophical issues.

The second edition of Problematising reality – Encounters between art and philosophy is a partnership between CAM / Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, IFILNOVA (CineLab) / FCSH / UNL and Maumaus / Lumiar Cité. This is a series of six discussion sessions and four seminars taking place at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, focusing on the moment when art and philosophy establish productive dialogues, proposing diverse approaches to contemporary thought. Each discussion session starts with a partial or full screening of works of art, accompanied by a reflection led by theorists, researchers or artists.