Page 102 - ARTE!Brasileiros #50

ENGLISH VERSION BACK TO THE NATURE

of space. Conceived by Francisca Caporali time when there were many of them, before the the Pampulha Art Museum. With the selection
while studying for a master’s degree in New crisis and the cultural dismantling in the country of ten participating artists, JA.CA coordinated
York, JA.CA was opened in 2010, when the artist - in different cities and put them in dialogue in the six months of performance of the artists
returned to Belo Horizonte and joined friends an “artistic residency”. In other words, instead alongside curators Julia Rebouças, Beatriz
Pedro Mendes and Xandro Gontijo. With funds of doing a residency for artists, a residency Lemos and Monica Hoff.
raised by the Rouanet Law, the trio opened was organized with representatives of these In all of these projects, whether working
the space in Jardim Canadá, a very peculiar “intentional spaces”, as they were called at the time. with the community, residing in Jardim
neighborhood in the city of Nova Lima, part “A very strong thing in the independent spaces Canadá, CCBB or Bolsa Pampulha, Moreira
of the Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte, are the parties, the kitchen, that affective and Caporali underscore the desire to closely
and began their activities that included mainly place that every home has. It is in this doing monitor and creatively participate in all the
residences and exhibitions. “People stayed a together, in cooking, in informal conversations, processes. “Because we also understand all
long time to understand what JA.CA was. We that many approaches, many partnerships of this as our artistic works. We both have this
wanted it to be a laboratory, a place for research, take place”, explains Moreira. In this way, the artistic background and we already had our
but in the beginning it ended up functioning entire residence was designed based on food, copyright works. At this point, we want to be
more like a gallery. Especially when artists “digestion and indigestion”, to actually discuss more in collective projects than individual ones,
enter a space like this, they immediately think the management of independent spaces - their but we still think of it as our works of art. They are
about setting up an exhibition. And it took us powers, structure, team building, projects, our experiments, needs, desires”, says Moreira.
a long time to put ourselves in exactly the way sustainability, etc. “And how to have such a Caporali also affirms that despite this current
we wanted”, explains Caporali. space is to have to do everything, unfold, the focus on administration and management, JA.CA
The choice of Jardim Canadá was due to the project’s subtitle was ‘how to whistle and suck has never been so strong in the sense of being
family relations that the three founders had with cane at the same time’.” a kind of artistic collective. She and Moreira
the place. The history of the neighborhood dates Other striking JA.CA projects over the emphasize, at this point, the need to mention
back to the 1950s, when the subdivision was following years were the Mobile Device for in this matter the names of the other members
launched, but due to a lack of infrastructure, Shared Actions (2015) and Praça Viva (2016). of the group, in addition to the two and Mateus:
the region only started to have an intense In the first, after the purchase of a Kombi Marcio Gabrich, Artur Souza, Sarah Matos,
occupation in the 1980s. Closer to the south and the approval in the Rumos Itaú Cultural Daniel Toledo, in addition to the various partners
zone of Belo Horizonte than to the center of announcement, six artists (also linked to who joined the over the years. “As we live in
Nova Lima, the Jardim Canadá is inlaid between gastronomy, architecture and other areas) these times of political and economic seesaw,
the margins of a natural park, a mining area, were selected for a 60-day residency to develop we understand that it is this affective place that
luxury condominiums and a federal highway. The itinerant actions with the Kombi. “We made holds us in these moments of emptying money,
initial occupation, with housing for employees film projections, performances, a portable for example,” says Caporali. “And if there is a
of condominiums, industrial warehouses school, a kitchen. This allowed us to leave the dark moment today, it is time to reinforce the
and services connected to the highway, has headquarters and amplify the actions: not the meetings, think about possible projects. It is
diversified over time. “It is a strange place, community going to JA.CA, but us and the artists clear that in this context it becomes even more
which has undergone an intense speculation going to the community”, says Moreira. important to resist. ” And it is in this sense that
process, but that never happens entirely. Today In Praça Viva (2016), JA.CA teamed up with JA.CA inaugurates Arrudas, its new space for
it is much more urbanized than ten years ago, teachers and students from the Municipal workshops, debates, exhibitions and meetings
being a neighborhood that has also found a School Benvinda Pinto Rocha to occupy a public in downtown Belo Horizonte.
vocation for craft beer and gastronomy. But it area that should have been a square - according
is a place with a lot of internal inequality and to the urban planning of the neighborhood - ON THE EDgES: VERAS [pAgES 68 TO 70]
full of paradoxes”, says Caporali. but that was used as a parking lot for trucks.
After negotiating with companies, JA.CA used ROOT TRANSVERSALITY
new ways materials discarded in the neighborhood to,
From a better understanding of the surroundings, next to the children, finally transform the space Veras Cultural Center, in Florianópolis,
JA.CA realized that the huge amount of waste into a public square. begins to be built from experience that
generated by companies, mining companies
and condominiums could become work material, bIg steps mixes art and other fields of knowledge
both for resident artists and for the space’s Over the years, in addition to the projects in the By FABIO CypRIANO
own projects. In this scenario, the creation of neighborhood, JA.CA has expanded its activities
the joinery in 2012, and the entry of Mateus outside Jardim Canadá, either in Belo Horizonte a cultural center is being created quite
Mesquita - Pedro and Xandro ended up moving or in partnerships with institutions in other cities. differently from private Brazilian art institutions,
away, the first to touch the Mendes Wood There was, for example, the creation of a space generally funded by millionaire patrons and yet
gallery -, in addition to partnerships with UFMg for artists’ studios in the center of the capital with recurring stories of failure, some of them
architecture students, opened new avenues of Minas Gerais, in addition to the organization endangering museums, as happened with the
of experimentation for the JA.CA. Projects of debates, lectures or audiovisual shows in closure of MAM-Sp in 1967 .
such as the Expanded Bus Stop, made with different locations. The whole process and the The new location is the Veras Cultural center,
discarded wood from the neighborhood, and learning of years culminated, in late 2017, in conceived from a twenty-year gestation by the
DESEJA.CA, which used materials for joinery, the approval of a JA.CA project to carry out the monk and curator Josué Mattos, who came
weaving, printing and design projects, are from educational project of the four CCBB spaces, up with the idea when he lived in a monastery
that period. in Belo Horizonte, Brasília, Rio de Janeiro in the mountains of Paraty and ended up
The move from JA.CA to the current and São Paulo. “We went from less than 10 specializing in art in France. Further out of the
headquarters, after an exorbitant increase in people to about 100”, says Caporali, reaffirming curve, impossible.
the rent of the old space with the paving of once again the need for JA.CA to adapt to new Born in Criciúma (Santa Catarina), Mattos
the street on which it was located, occurred circumstances. moved to Florianópolis in the 90s. “That was
in 2014, from the construction on a new plot of For the work with CCBB, JA.CA deepened when the desire to do this project started. The
the same neighborhood of a space divided into its performance in the pedagogical area and, conception is from 1999. At that time I was
six containers. Conceived in a transportable or although linked to a large institution with its own involved in alternative movements, spiritual
demountable way, the headquarters becomes rules and guidelines, it nevertheless carried its and linked to Yoga and attended a cultural center,
less vulnerable to real estate speculation that luggage as an independent and experimental which was not quite the best denomination for
has already made JA.CA move twice. Joinery, art space - including taking artists and curators him, but that was what it was called”, begins
library, living area, kitchen and all spaces can for the processes at the CCBB. “We have to to tell the atypical story , by phone, right after
be transported with relative ease if necessary. understand how to act in each place, but always deciding how to remove a huge rock that
Caporali’s approach with Samantha Moreira - maintaining consistency and work autonomy. threatened the subsoil of the new space.
founder of Ateliê Aberto (1997) in Campinas, one And we really believe in this place of the meeting, In 1999, the monk went to live in Paraty, where
of the most long-standing autonomous spaces of the coexistence, that governs all our projects”, he spent three years, and from there he left
in the country - took place more intensely from says Moreira. for Paris, to study art, “because he thought it
Indie. Management, created jointly by the two Still in 2018, another novelty was the choice would be important for this cultural center”. He
spaces and carried out in 2014. The project, of JA.CA, based on an announcement from the spent almost ten years in the French capital,
financed through a Funarte award, set out to Belo Horizonte City Hall, to coordinate the 7th studying philosophy and literature of Yoga and
map independent management spaces - at a edition of the Pampulha scholarship, linked to History of Art and Archeology.

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