Architectures of Discourse and First Story - Women Building/New Narratives for the 21st Century are both conceived as twofold projects: an exhibition part as a physical space to enter and the periodical case (for information about case please mail to case123@gmx.net) for distribution and circulation of the raised topic.

First Story - Women Building/New Narratives for the 21st Century has a different character: as it is a project developed for the particular parameters of a Cultural Capital - Porto 2001. As one of the major exhibitions it should address a vast audience beyond the closed circuit of the contemporary art world. Furthermore the particular circumstances of a Cultural Capital should leave an initiating mark within the existing structures - it should be the beginning of an ongoing process.

First Story - Women Building/New Narratives for the 21st Century is a transdisciplinary project including participation by women who work in various artistic and cultural fields. The project opens up new dimensions of cultural production in terms of visibility of women1s issues. The process of production becomes part of the project itself. First Story... takes on the function of a Start-Up enterprise which develops further an international and local network of female artists, cultural producers, film makers, architects, writers, activists etc. particularly in regard to their engagement in women related issues. The commission of specific productions is based on various topics and research fields. Points of departure are new narratives by women oriented towards the future role of women in society.

The starting point of Architectures of Discourse was an invitation from an art institution - the Fundacio Antoni Tapies - that wanted to open its doors even more to contemporary cultural discourses and to engage with current artistic practices of a younger generation. An appealing anchor point was the division of this institution into a space introducing the work of its founder, the Catalan artist Antoni Tapies, a research library focusing on modern and contemporary art based on the initial private library of the artist and a space for temporary exhibitions. This was reason enough to bridge between these columns - to bring in cultural practitioners from different backgrounds, but all active in the cultural field, to provide a re-reading of this context and its vast archive of cultural periodicals.That process constitutes a space for ongoing debate creates neighborhoods, overlaps and knots of intertwinement that finally resulted not only in an exhibition but as well in the new periodical case. My interest lies in how that process might form a re-reading of material that reflects various current methodologies within contemporary thought. The invited participants have been developing specific contributions, introducing their own working methodologies, methodologies that go beyond the definitions of their fields.