Page 103 - ARTE!Brasileiros #45

The exhibition Still I Rise is the first that is part of a partnership between the two institutions. The This desire began in my activity as a lecturer in the art course at the Federal University
project consists of hosting a show simultaneously in both locations once a year. It is also the first of Espírito Santo.
curation, in MASP, by Amanda Carneiro, who acts as a supervisor public programs at the museum. Then I had access to the reports of the students, about violence, death and rapes of relatives
Still I Rise brings a new phase of Sônia Gomes’ works, using, this time, pieces of logs found on the and friends, on the part of the state. At the same time with that too, I immersed myself
edge or the bottom of rivers in the interior of Minas Gerais, her state of origin. In them, Sonia does her in the history of the city, the state and the country. These stories made me rethink my
work with fabrics, handling them in a variety of ways, flowing with her usual work in another direction. condition as an art teacher and as an artist. How to react to this, perceiving violence as an
The artist does not consider herself a militant artist, but does not abandon herself as a political element impregnated in Brazilian culture, society and history. I then decided to study how
body, although she does not take it to her work in an eminent way. She has already been called the recent formation of the state of Espírito Santo was, and how this process related to a
a naïf artist, a popular artist and also an artisan. She dismisses the labels: “It happens because historical project that through the discourse of progress promoted even more violence.
I’m black, if I were white they would not be worried about putting me in any place.” The state of Espírito Santo has a very large flow of capital because of the ports that move
much of the economy. Among them, the Port of Tubarão, the mining company Vale that
ARTIST RAFAEL PAGATINI | PAGES 74 TO 78 exports iron ore to everyone, is one of the most important. In this context Vitória seemed
ARCHIVE RESEARCHES CREATE to me an interesting city to think about how the place connects with the global through the
commodities that pass through the city and how they influence social, political, aesthetic
POLITICAL NARRATIVES and historically the memory of the place.
IN CONTEMPORARY ART The port at the same time that generates taxes for the municipality, throws iron ore on
the houses, It is normal to wake up with a dark glow on the balconies. Symbolic violence
comes with the wind blowing. This complex relationship between economy, exploitation
BY PATRICIA ROUSSEAUX processes, taxes, pollution, led me to investigate how the port’s implementation process
was and from that point on, the military period.
DOPS (RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS SERIES) The Capixaba economy was based until the 1950’s on the export of coffee, from the 60’s it
is part of a logic of expansion of large industrial projects of the Brazilian economy focused
THE IMAGES THAT MAKE UP THE DOPS PIECE ARE PART OF THE DOPS-ES FUND ARCHIVED IN on the foreign market. This process has aggravated regional inequalities and has led to
THE "RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS" SERIES, WHICH CONTAIN REPORTS FROM INVESTIGATIONS INTO increased rates of violence. The economic modernization, for example, promoted the
CATHOLIC BISHOPS. THE SERIES OF PHOTOGRAPHS PRESENTS THE MAIN CHARACTERS OF THE construction of Samarco Mineração, inaugurated in 1977, by the then military president
EVENT ORGANIZED BY THE CATHOLIC CHURCH CALLED THE "YOUNG PEOPLE'S COUNCIL", BY Ernesto Geisel. Company that provoked in 2015 the biggest environmental crime in Brazilian
PRIESTS LINKED TO LIBERATION THEOLOGY, WHO SOUGHT TO DIALOGUE WITH THE COMMUNITY history. The rupture of the Fundão dam in the state of Minas Gerais led a gigantic wave
NOT ONLY ABOUT ISSUES OF A RELIGIOUS NATURE, BUT ALSO TO GIVE VOICE TO REPRESENTATIVES of heavy metals to the river Doce, the main river of the state of Espírito Santo. I followed
OF ORGANIZATIONS, THEIR CLAIMS AND PROBLEMS THEY FACED. ON THE BACK OF EACH the arrival of the toxic mud at the mouth of the river, the destruction of marine life, the
PHOTOGRAPH THERE IS A TEXTUAL DESCRIPTION THAT INDICATES THE NAMES OF THE PERSONS despair of fishermen, riverside, the death of a river. The orange waters of the Doce river
PHOTOGRAPHED AND RESPONDS OR RESPONDS TO PROCESSES AND WHAT THEY WOULD HAVE reflected the whole history of authoritarianism, violence, conflict, and decadence of this
AFFIRMED IN THE EVENT. great project of progress, boosted in the state by the military regime.
THE MANIPULATION IN THE DOPS (RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS) WORK IS STRUCTURED AS AN How to link research and think of building possible narratives. How could we think poetically
OPERATIONAL CONCEPT OF THE PROCESS OF CREATION AND ACTIVATION OF THE PROPOSAL. from art as a reaction force to authoritarian structures and art as a space for the invention
THIS PROCEDURE REMOVES THE AUTHORITY WITH WHICH THE DOCUMENT WAS PRODUCED of practices and utopias? I try that my production presents, as, the place of the politician
AT THE SAME TIME THAT IT PRESENTS THE CONTROL LOOK OF THE AUTHORITARIAN REGIME in the practices of memory can be built locally and linked to the current Brazilian context.
To deepen the research I approached a colleague of the university historian, Pedro Ernesto
ARTE!Brasileiros — Tell us a little about your story Fagundes, who helped me with his research to think the local memory, and began the
Rafael Pagatini I was born in 1985 in the city of Caxias do Sul, RS, in the state of Rio Grande investigation with the DOPS-ES archives in the Public Archives of Espírito Santo. I am
do Sul, I am the son of a carpenter and a first-grade teacher. At the age of 18, I went to interested in thinking of the archive as something alive, pulsating, that leads me to a crisis
Porto Alegre, the state capital, to study arts at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. of representation that starts with art and approaches history and sociology.
In Porto Alegre, I had contact with the local art system and with people who helped me think Some questions guide my practice from the use of archives: How was the participation of
about art and its creative possibilities. I went deep into the woodcut from the beginning, businessmen in the military government? What is the imaginary in society about the period?
perhaps because I was close to the wood, because of my father. At that time I learned to How much is this story still latent in the Brazilian social, cultural and political context?
live together as a group, living with other students. How can working from an aesthetic of the period contribute to the development of an
In Porto Alegre I began to investigate possibilities of uses of graphic processes amplifying art research? How to recover the flaws, the desires, the memory gaps without imposing
my repertoire, using from woodcut to recordings and laser cuts. In addition I had contact speeches, but opening the work to the experience of art and without closing the search in
with the practice of research in visual poetics that made me realize how the procedures the restricted codes of the artistic field?
adopted throughout the creation process promote discursive possibilities for the work.
In this sense, the gesture of recording, as a process of printing a body, of inscription in a A!B — How do you choose the brackets?
territory, led me to think about the issues of memory and to develop a language from the From the desire to reflect on the construction of speeches, to doubt the images and then
engraving procedures and their relations with photography. go after media and materials. The unstable relationships between photography, art and
document, and how an image transits between document and fiction and how to bring
A!B — What made you invest in your work and what, in your opinion, was the basis for them to the end product.
making this decision? So I think of the photographic image as a trace of reality and the possibility of
My research goes through graphic processes, relationships with photography and how manipulation. I work with photography from images I search in files and how they can
they might reflect a discussion of loss and erasure. However, when I moved to Vitoria, I was be subverted, constructed, interpreted. I think of photography as a materiality to be
interested in working with issues that bring the social landscape to light, from the memory unfolded, fractured, modeled, reconstructed. As I work a lot with public archives, I always
of the military dictatorship. imagine how these images function as small public spaces for discussion and debate.

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