Month: May 2013

Videobrasil Meeting | Caribbean: Archipelagos for Thought

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Caribbean: Archipelagos for Thought, May 14 2013, at 8:00 pm São Paulo time

To the Martiniquais writer Édouard Glissant, the geography of Antillean archipelagos represents a template for thinking a “creole world” whose dealings with the others are no longer outlined by instances of multiculturalism and compartmentalized identities, but rather by coexistence and dissolution processes. Glissant builds on the Antilles’ insular multitude to propose a model of “archipelago-thinking” as opposed to “continental thinking,” whose nature is hegemonic or homogeneity-inducing.

Annalee Davis, director of Barbados’ Fresh Milk independent center for art practices; Andrés Hernandez, a Cuban-born, Brazilian-based curator; and Mirtes Oliveira, a member of the G27 study group will convene at São Paulo’s Ateliê 397 to relate the notion of “archipelago thinking,” coined by Glissant, with their own contemporary art practices.

This initiative will usher in a new phase in Videobrasil’s audience interface, featuring horizontal, collaborative, investigative, and debate-oriented platforms.

Featuring: Andrés Hernandez, Mirtes Oliveira, Annalee Davis. Mediated by Sabrina Moura. English and Portuguese will be spoken. No simultaneous translation available. On the occasion, issues of ARC Magazine dedicated to Caribbean art, will be available to public consulting.

 About the guests

Andrés I. M. Hernández is a curator and independent producer who holds a master’s in Visual Arts. He was coordinator of the exhibition department at Wilfredo Lam Contemporary Art Center (which hosts the Havana Biennial); the executive coordinator of the curating department at the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art; and recently the production and institutional relations coordinator at Luciana Brito Galeria.

Annalee Davis is a Barbadian visual artist whose work addresses the Caribbean’s postcolonial heritage. She was the founder of Fresh Milk, an independent Barbados-based association that supports research exchange initiatives and fosters productions by contemporary creators. She is a part-time professor at the Barbados Community College’s baccalaureate program. As an artist, she has featured in the São Paulo and Havana biennials (both in 1994), among other shows.

Mirtes Marins de Oliveira was the coordinator of the Baccalaureate in Fine Arts (1997-2006) at Faculdade Santa Marcelina (Fasm), and the implementer and coordinator, from 2003 to 2013, of the master’s program in visual arts at the same institution. Presently, she is a professor at the masters and doctoral courses in Design at Universidade Anhembi-Morumbi. The G27 group, of which she is a member alongside Ana Maria Maia (Tomie Ohtake Institute), Regina Parra (FAAP) and Tainá Azeredo (Casa Tomada), studies the manifold aspects of curating processes and practices, by means of historical research on art and design shows held since the emergence of 20th century vanguards.

About Ateliê 397

Founded in 2003 by a group of visual artists (Bruna Costa, Rafael Campos Rocha and Sílvia Jábali), Ateliê 397 promotes the diffusion, production and exhibition of contemporary art. It holds art shows and interdisciplinary events involving video art sessions, performances, happenings, music concerts, publication of artist books, and other forms of contemporary art experimentation. Currently coordinated by Marcelo Amorim and Thais Rivitti, the facility plays the role of spreading debate, creating opportunities for artwork to be shown, and presenting productions by young artists from across Brazil.

About Associação Cultural Videobrasil

Associação Cultural Videobrasil is an international reference center on art from the Southern hemisphere. Created by curator Solange Oliveira Farkas, the former director of the Museum of Modern Art of Bahia, Associação maintains a partnership with SESC. The two institutions have jointly promoted a biennial International Contemporary Art Festival, focused on the geopolitical South circuit, and exhibitions such as Isaac Julien: Geopoetics (São Paulo, 2012), Joseph Beuys – We are the revolution (São Paulo and Salvador, 2010/2011), and Sophie Calle – Take care of yourself (São Paulo and Salvador, 2009). Other ongoing productions of the partnership include the Videobrasil Residency Program; Videobrasil Authors Collection, a series of documentaries; and Caderno SESC_Videobrasil, an annual contemporary art publication. Devised as a platform for production, dissemination and discussion of contemporary art from the Southern hemisphere, by means of partnerships and dialogue with curators, artists and other institutions, Associação also maintains a network of residency partners and educational actions aligned with the Festivals and exhibitions it conceives.

This meeting is an opening activity of a series from the Public Programming segment, a new Videobrasil’s front, dedicated to foster platforms for widening of access and research on contemporary arts and culture.

Fresh Performance Chapter 1: Defining Performance

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FRESH MILK in collaboration with Damali Abrams presents Chapter 1 in the Fresh Performance Project: Defining Performance

Fresh Performance is an experimental documentary that I am working on through a seven-month off-site residency with Fresh Milk. Each month I will interview one artist in New York City and one in the Caribbean concerning different aspects of performance in their respective practices and post the videos online. I will then edit them all into a full-length documentary. My intention is that as artists we can connect with and learn from each other through our work. In my own practice, I use my art as my therapy, my school, my playground and also my surrogate when I need to communicate things that I do not know how to communicate otherwise. Through this project I am studying performance via conversations with a group of exceptional contemporary artists. I am extremely grateful for this opportunity to collaborate with Fresh Milk and all of these talented makers.

Art itself is a nebulous concept that eludes definition. Performance art is that much more precarious. I am drawn to performance because it can encapsulate just about anything else from any medium or discipline. It seems to be somewhat lawless and anarchic. But that is my own personal definition. In chapter one of Fresh Performance, artists Sandra Vivas, originally from Venezuela, currently living in Dominica, and Nyugen E. Smith from Jersey City, share their own definitions.

I met with Nyugen at 59th and Columbus in New York City on a very chilly early Spring day. It was far windier than expected and we scouted around for a location that would not provide too many audio challenges.  We tried inside of a mall, a hotel lobby and finally Nyugen suggested a tunnel at Central Park. It turned out to be perfect.

Sandra Vivas and I met on Google Hangout. Despite many technical difficulties, she and I had a very warm conversation. It was more like speaking with a friend I had known for years rather than someone I was meeting for the first time online. Sandra shared that while she enjoys living in Dominica, she feels very isolated creatively and has not done any performance art there.

This project is a work-in-progress and as stated above, Fresh Performance is intended to remain an open discussion so please feel free to share any questions, comments and critiques.

– Damali Abrams

About Nyugen Smith:

With a fearless approach, multi-media artist Nyugen Smith embraces the role of cultural informer and champion of social justice. Drawing heavily on his West Indian heritage, Smith is interested in raising consciousness of past and present political struggles through his work which consists of sculpture, installation, video and performance. Growing up in Trinidad, Smith was profoundly influenced by the conflation of African cultural practices and the residue of British colonial rule encountered in his daily life on the island. Responding to this unique cultural environment, Smith’s art is a reaction to imperialist practices of oppression, violence and ideological misnomers.

About Sandra Vivas:

Sandra Vivas was born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1969 and is currently living in Dominica West. Sandra has developed a body of work that has performance as a permanent thread through her paintings and videos. Irony and humour play a fundamental role in her work and she is considered a feminist performance pioneer in Venezuela. From 1997-2008, Sandra taught at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, in the Undergrad and Graduate Programs of the Escuela de Artes, teaching Contemporary Art History. Sandra studied painting and ballet and has a Bachelors Degree in Art History from the Universidad Central de Venezuela and a Masters Degree in New Genres from the San Francisco Art Institute, California, USA.