Gender und Space // Invisible Limits: The Hidden Constraints of Public Life (Mafalda Vaz)
This project explores how cities, shaped by invisible forces, often prioritize certain lives while excluding others, particularly in public spaces. Part of Gender & Space studio (IKA).
Rooted in my hometown in Portugal, Porto, I am creating a video that captures these spaces' overlooked moments and perspectives, revealing how they affect those who navigate them differently. Rather than offering solutions, this work serves as a wake-up call to the quiet truths embedded in our cities, inviting reflection on the inequities woven into urban design and what it means to share space equitably.
Architecture is not just about the structures we see—it’s about the invisible forces that shape how we move, who we become, and what we can imagine. It is a mirror reflecting the priorities of its makers and the hierarchies of its time. My work seeks to linger in the shadows of these spaces, to question how cities—our cities—have been built with some lives in mind while leaving others at the margins, especially in the shared and contested grounds of public spaces.
This project takes root in my hometown in Portugal, Porto, a familiar and estranged place. Its streets and squares, steeped in tradition yet evolving with modern ambition, hold the beauty of nostalgia but also the weight of exclusion. As part of this exploration, I am creating a short video to capture what reality offers us each day—moments we often overlook. The video will observe the quiet interactions and layered perspectives of these spaces, offering glimpses of how public spaces shape lives differently depending on who inhabits them.
But this is not a search for answers—it is a wake-up call to the quiet truths embedded in the design of our cities. It is a reminder that public spaces, for all their promise of openness, are not neutral. They hold the biases of their creators, often privileging efficiency and commerce over care and inclusivity. This work invites us to see the invisible barriers and unspoken rules that shape our cities, not to solve them but to sit with the discomfort of knowing they exist. What does it mean to inhabit a world where freedom is not equally shared, and what would it take to imagine a different way of being together?
Author: Mafalda Vaz