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audiovisual works conceived in conjunction with its protagonists, which blend consumer industry. “We were interested in understanding how the bodies of these
documentary and fiction, reality and imagination, and that raise debates such young people, many influenced by pop culture, transit between tradition and the
as the use of the body, the industry music, dialogs and conflicts between pop contemporary, “says the artist.
culture and traditional manifestations and on the ideas of good and bad taste. Was this same line of research, transported to another territory and context, that
Issues treated in a multidisciplinary way in works that depict characters from resulted in the short Faz que Vai (2015), work done in Recife after the production
marginalized universes and the way they presented themselves to the world of two other projects: Desenho Canteiro (2014), a video-collage on the real estate
– from tacky/brega musicians and dancers of frevo in Recife to rappers from market; and Como se Fosse Verdade (2015), a hybrid of photographic series and
Toronto; from schlager singers of Münster to Evangelical speakers of the Zona installation held at the bus terminal of Cidade Tiradentes, in São Paulo. Faz que vai,
da Mata in Pernambuco, Brazil. filmed with four frevo dancers, also raises questions of gender, that run through
“On the one hand, are manifestations that seem marginal, but in real life they other works of the artists.
are very central in the culture. Schlager is the musical genre more consumed “In the case of movies we understood that music is the element that constitutes
in Germany, hip hop is a worldwide phenomenon and brega is very popular a kind of basis for practices that we research. Be it dance, videoclips, the song.
here in the Northeast of Brazil , “says De Burca. “ I think we seek to understand It is the performance generally linked to the music industries that are on the
these phenomena that seem marginalized, but actually have a central nerve in boundary between the tradition and pop, “says Wagner. “ They are young people
our culture experience “, complete Wagner. “ They drink all the time from this who have for the first time the possibility of working with art, and the body is
central cultural production, and at the same time they don’t need it, they are not a central element in that. It is the working tool in this culture of the spectacle “
dependent on the mainstream and on the conventional media. Those are groups
who find wayouts for their own existence inside that universe of trading between DEMOCRATIZATION AND THE WORLD OF ART
centre and outskirts. “ Invited to 32nd Bienal de São Paulo, curated by Jochen Volz, the duo produced Estás
In this sense, Wagner and de Burca are questioning the notion, popular in sectors Vendo Coisas (2016) in Recife, moving from the universe of frevo to that of young,
of political activism and in areas of the social sciences, of “give voice” to minorities brega singers in nightclubs and in the recording of video clips. Considering that
and marginalized. To the duo, these groups have their own voice, “they know very 900 thousand people passed through the Biennial, it was there that the moment
well how to perform”, and so the work deals with much more to hear those voices of greater visibility for the work of the artists was given. Barbara confesses: “It
or create together other possible voices. “So we always question what could be was very exciting to see how people relate to work. People with different ages and
our contribution. What we register in audiovisual has to go to another place, a directories, with different understandings of what is an artistic work. “
place that comes from the encounter, from the dialogue between our wishes to According to her, it was an interesting moment also to see how the work had
observe, to understand and to question together with their artistic will. The will repercussions in the world of art, with educators, with the commercial circuit,
of people with whom we collaborate, “says Wagner. with independent curators or with the direction of institutions. “ We are always
The resulting, therefore, comes from something that is shared when in elaboration testing, because each instance of these has its specificities. And for having
and that reaches at end something new. Somehow refers to the ethnofiction this hybrid work, it is very good to be able to show RISE, for instance, both in a
movies of Jean Rouch, who created narratives with the protagonists, a shared private gallery in São Paulo (Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel) and at the Berlin festival.
anthropology as Rouch called it, but at the same time the duo’s work transpires It is interesting to test the crosses of these spheres, the points of intersection”.
less improvisation than the work of the French. To the duo, the work begins in the The short film made in the year after the biennial, Bye Bye Deutschland! (2017),
planning and in the screenplay, follows in the filming, and still later, in the film’s held for the Skulptur Projekte festival, in Münster, accompanies a couple of
entire career. “We keep in touch with everyone we worked from the first movie schlager singers, popular musical genres in Germany and in northern European
ever, and they always know where the movies are circulating”. countries, marked by sentimental lyrics and melodies. “And it also had a lot to do
with this issue of good taste and bad taste. Contemporary German artists twist
FROM EUROPE TO BRAZIL their noses at the schlager so, to talk about this genre was a surprise, even to
Wagner and de Burca were already working on their own when they met in Skulptur Projekte. But for us, it was the only possible way. A job in Münster had
Europe at the end of 2009, when Wagner completed her masters in Visual Arts to be about this, “explains Wagner.
in the Netherlands. Born in Brasilia and graduated in journalism in Recife, she This surprise of which the artist speaks also raises a strangeness when one thinks
was deepening a mainly photographic research, already centered in questions of of the great recognition that the pair reached in means where the musical genres of
the body and in the fields of pop culture and tradition. Benjamin, born in Munich which they treat are normally considered bad. “The circuits of art and cinema are
(Germany), with graduation and postgraduate in Arts completed in Glasgow very elitists. But what I feel is that somehow our work communicates something,
(Scotland) and Belfast (Northern Ireland), had a work mainly focused on collages, even beyond our intention, that interests people. But it is difficult to explain, we
photographs and painting. The first work done in partnership began to take shape ourselves are always trying to understand “. The most controversial reaction
when the two moved to the capital of Pernambuco at the end of 2012, in “a very came with the short Terremoto Santo, 2017 - year in that Wagner was the winner
interesting period to observe what was the representation of a new middle class of the PIPA Prize - which presents the evangelical universe of Zona da Mata in
in Brazil “. Edifício Recife (2013), a photographic series accompanied by small Pernambuco from a record label of gospel music in the city of Palmares. In creating
interviews, analyzes “the relationship between the sculptures of noble buildings in the film an atmosphere that is both real and fanciful, where in a moment the
in Recife and the porters of these buildings.” Although not focused on musical or camera shakes simulating an earthquake - in dialogue with the music being sung
body issues, the work already presented several of the themes developed later by -, the autors disturbed part of the artistic community.”Even today, the reception
the pair, such as the contrast between social classes and the use of urban space. is divided. There are people who think the film is a conservative propaganda of
In the same year appeared the first audiovisual work, Cinéma Casino (2013), an evangelicals, others think we might even mock them,” she comments. The curious,
investigation into the musical genre maloya among new generations in Reunion according to De Burca, is that the passages that sounds most fictionals in the
Island. Commissioned for the 4th Biennial of the Indian Ocean, the work was movies are always conceived in the processes of creation with the characters
filmed in the french overseas department, located next to Africa, and puts into themselves, from things that actual exists in their lives
perspective sonorities and local dances – both traditional areas related to creole “On artistic practice of these groups, are singers, dancers, music producers of
culture and anticolonial resistance as contemporary manifestations aligned to the the tacky, schlager, the gospel or swingueira, this fantasy is very present. There

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