Page 85 - ARTE!Brasileiros #54

that when it is too dirty, it becomes an “urgent Casa established itself as an outstanding and this performance that also emerged in
issue for art museums in the Trumpist era”. unique cultural space in the country. Unique for an almost obvious way. Because we are
Throughout the essays, the author creates its experimental and collective performance, there in a neighborhood that was one of
some very valid terms to think about the based on a notion of culture that extrapolates the hardest hit in São Paulo, because it is
current moment, such as the notion of artistic practices - including activism, food, dense, has many tenements, occupations,
“ethical aesthetics”, this need for artistic housing, mental health and sport -, which a slum. A G1 article even showed that,
and institutional practices to be based on has now resulted in a movement that is also proportionally, Bom Retiro was more
responsible conduct, avoiding the complicity peculiar in the face of the greatest of all. crises, affected than Brasilândia, for example.
of managers of cultural institutions with the that of the Covid-19 pandemics. So we had a reality in front of us. And this
post-truth policy of leaders like Bolsonaro or “And this movement of cultural centers to movement of cultural centers to close their
Trump. However, these ideas are often small close their doors and go online seemed to doors and go online seemed to me to be
pills that deserve further study. me to be a kind of total abandonment of what a kind of total abandonment of what we
Another is the idea of reconstruction we do. It was as if we could close ourselves do. It was as if we could close ourselves in
through art, based on artistic practices such as in our privilege, think that it was enough to our privilege, think that it was enough to
that of the English group Forensic Architecture, go to the networks to communicate only with go to the networks to communicate with
a multidisciplinary research collective the people who can access these contents the public and that everything would be
created by the architect Eyal Weizman, at and that it doesn’t matter if the world ended fine. As if it were enough to communicate
the University of London. “Many artists up between one bunker and another ”, says only with those people who can access
have gone from a deconstruction posture to Seroussi. After the quarantine and the need these contents and that it doesn’t matter
a reconstruction posture - that is, to the use of for social isolation were decreed, in March if the world ended up between one bunker
artifice to rehabilitate the documentary mode last year, Casa do Povo closed its doors to the and another. And I think this view is
as a system, if not descriptively adequate, at public, but, in dialogue with the population questionable, both from an ethical point
least critically efficient”, describes in the essay and with the collectives that use the space, of view, and because our performance
Real Fictions. Foster then quotes Weizman traced new lines of action, among them the already understands culture as something
to exemplify some of these procedures in production and distribution of soap and masks that goes far beyond the presentation of
forensic practices: the witness policy based on and the collection and donation of food and artistic practices. We think of culture
individual testimony and returns to “empathy meal baskets. and art as tools for social transformation.
with victims” and a policy for the defense Also, despite the redirection of funds in the Culture has to do with care, with taking
of human rights carried out as “a process institution, projects such as the restoration care of the other, with rehearsing other
of materialization and media coverage”. In of the tAiB (Teatro de Arte Israelita Brasileiro, possible worlds. This speech that turned
addition to Forensic Architecture, the author known for having been an important center into a buzzword, which all cultural spaces
points out Harun Farocki (1944-2014) and Hito of opposition to the military dictatorship), talk about, was suddenly put in check. And
Steyerl as acting in the same direction. located in the basement of the House, and we didn’t want to stay in this pool, even at
So, returning to the question of the book’s the reactivation of the library, reopened in the risk of not doing what was expected
title, Foster doesn’t shy away from giving many 2019 after 40 years closed and that gathers 8 of us, or of getting lost in something we
clues to point out possible ways out of the hoax. thousand books (half of them in Yiddish) and didn’t know how to do.
But the conclusion that he himself points out a documentary collection. We also did an exercise of looking at
in the introduction is very clear: “Nothing is In an interview to arte!brasileiros, our history, so as not to do something
guaranteed; everything is fight ”. Seroussi comments on these issues and totally disconnected from it. But, as
also talks about the difficulties of financial always, it is less history authorizing us
intERviEW | BEnJAMin SERoUSSi [PAgES 14 to 20] collection in the context of the pandemic and and more the past seen as a lever, with
of a Brazil with a federal government that is a look from the present, a look not from
FIRST THE GESTURES, averse to culture. “So I think we were already historians, but from curators, managers…
THEN THE WORDS experiencing a kind of censorship embedded And in this case, when we saw photos of
those people who founded the Casa do
in the neoliberal understanding of what culture
is, which was economic censorship. Now we Povo in 1946, and that a few years before
Benjamin Seroussi, director of Casa see a kind of ghost from the past, which is a they were gathering groceries, sewing
do Povo, talks about the reasons why possible political censorship”, he says. “But and sending clothes to the front - then for
the São Paulo cultural center started we need to fight against this, with the tools we World War ii - we understand in fact that
to act directly, not only in the virtual have, because culture is a basic right. There what we do is not something foreign to our
environment, during the crisis caused by is no stream”, he concludes. Read the full history. Anyway, so now in the pandemic
the pandemic (and by the government) conversation below. we started doing these things that we
and highlights the difficulties and didn’t know how to do so well, but using
solutions to finance the space activities - We have just completed a year of the tools that are ours. That is, seeing
the Covid-19 pandemic and Casa do Povo what we could do ourselves and what
By MARCoS gRinSPUM FERRAZ was one of the cultural institutions that we could welcome (Casa always works
acted almost as a “front line” in the fight like this). We think it is important to work
how has Casa Do povo surviveD in the against the tragic impacts of this pandemic. with the seamstresses of the region, we
midst of the crisis? “We are already a crisis He did not restrict himself to making an started raising funds for the neighborhood
specialist,” replies Benjamin Seroussi, director online program, for example, but started and at the same time, inspired by the
of the São Paulo institution, jokingly. In fact, to distribute food, produce soap, masks, Lanchonete <> Lanchonete project, in
when the cultural center resumed its activities, etc. I wanted you to tell us a little bit about Rio, we started making these baskets
from 2012 and 2013, Brazil was starting a long how that process went. open, where people choose the food they
process of economic and political crisis - from Benjamin Seroussi - I think that “frontline” want, instead receiving a closed box. And
which it never left. More than that, before the is a vocabulary that is kind of complex, we also started to listen to people in the
resumption, the space founded in 1946 by because we have also tried to question territory, listen to suggestions, and even
progressive Jews in the neighborhood of Bom this idea of war. I think that sometimes a offer the space of Casa for the city to use.

Retiro was in the throes of about 30 years of very warlike vocabulary is used. It’s a war
deep crisis, which implied the closure of almost against whom, right? Against a virus? It Did it work?
all its activities and the abandonment of a is like that campaign that states that “a The City Hall responded by sending a
good part of its space - a modernist building mosquito is not stronger than an entire form, we filled it out and we had no further
designed by Ernest Mange. country”. But it’s not like that… Because answer. But okay, we know they were in
In these less than 10 years of resumption, there was the mosquito, there was the the middle of the madness. And in the
started with the rapprochement of ex-students virus, but the problem is us. dialogues with the groups that inhabit
from the school that worked there until 1981, Casa, things emerged. Adriana Sumi, from
with the arrival of Seroussi - curator and Putting the blame on an external enemy the Collective of dialogue and diversity of
manager coming from experiences at the in war… tactics, said that she could teach how to
Centro da Cultura Judaica and at the São Exactly. And I think we need less of the make soap; a neighborhood ngo needed
Paulo Biennial - and, gradually, from other idea of “let’s go to war” and more of the space to leave the baskets it received; a
collectives and cultural and social agents, idea of “let’s weave solidarity”. So we have social worker from the region needed a

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