Jaime Fernandes

João Pedro Fróis was born in Lisbon in 1957. University professor and researcher, he is currently a guest researcher at the School of Medicine of the University of Lisbon. He worked as a psychologist in the area of mental healthcare and rehabilitation of children and young people. He coordinated the Gulbenkian Programme on Aesthetic Research and Development and several research projects concerning Education in Art Museums, funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). Author and co-author of various books on education and the visual arts, two of which published by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. He has published studies on the aesthetic theory of Lev S. Vygotsky, and translated two of his books. He regularly publishes in the area of the Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and Visual Arts. He worked on the biography of Jaime Fernandes and studied his visual artwork for over a decade, which gave rise to several articles published in international journals. He was vice-chair of the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics (IAEA). He is an affiliated researcher at the Center for Phenomenological Psychology and Aesthetics (CPPA) at the University of Copenhagen. Currently a member of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) and Portuguese Society of Psychiatry and Mental Health (SPPSM). Michel Thévoz was a conservator at the Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts in Lausanne from 1960 to 1975. Following his contacts with Jean Dubuffet, he initiated the creation of the Collection de l’Art Brut in Lausanne (Switzerland), of which he assumed the direction from its foundation in 1976 until 2001. Professor of Art History and Museology at the University of Lausanne from 1977 to 2001, he published about 20 books.