Presentation
The heavens thunder loud and clear: The world-ship is in the midst of the modern storm. How do we face it? What route do we seek?
Malcom Ferdinand, Decolonial ecology: thinking from the Caribbean world
Almost two years after the official end of the Covid-19 pandemic in Brazil, the virus and its consequences are largely integrated into our daily life. Since march 2020 – when life was put in danger and the world entered a state of suspension –, until today, however, our ways of being in the world changed and issues arose that can no longer be avoided. It is on this raw material that the videos produced in the Nove Solos project are based.
Started as an invitation to reflect on the nine countries that kept their borders open to Brazilians during the pandemic – when geopolitical isolation experienced by Brazil was added to the social isolation experienced by so many people –, Nove Solos followed the inevitable changes of perspective that controlling the virus permitted. In this process, to look back and see what is left, albeit sometimes painful, allows us to shed light on the diverse layers, sometimes contradictory, that make up the present time.
What the nine videos remember: of a racialized pandemic, that concentrated wealth and deepened the disparities in access to health and care; of wars, literal or symbolic, which crossed time and affections; of the tired land and bodies, in a search split between the desire of evasion and of reconnection; of the useless attempts of controlling the events or predicting what the future had for us.
The videos point out to subjects displaced in a time when prevails an absurdity that, if it was not produced by the virus, gained a new tension with it. Surrounded by sea and air, small in the almost impossible atmosphere, we keep searching for gaps and more or less unobstructed paths to move forward.
Works
A um voo de distância
4'47" ANTI RIBEIRO
A um voo de distância [A flight away] takes as its raw material the documentation of different kinds of flights to reflect on the idea of displacement between not only geopolitical limits, but also species. In this video diptych, the sky emerges as metaphor for a common space, unregulated and crossed by human and non-human beings in their distinct routes. In the sky it is also possible to find shelter or a way out; it is in the distance from the ground that perspectives mix up and merge, relativizing individual positions and distances.
Babel
5'03" Mia Aragão e Pedro Domingos
Spaces of connection and, at once, of control of the fluxes of people and merchandise, the great airports of the world are meeting points of the most varied languages and destinies. The emptying of these and other transit places, consequence of the restrictions imposed during the pandemic, turned more evident their weirdness: aseptic and without personality, they are however completely integrated to our contemporary experience of the world. Departing from the particularities of such places, Babel weaves a poetic reflection on impermanence and the no-place inhabited by foreigners everywhere.
À deriva
5' Rafael Nascimento
In a poetic way, À deriva [Adrift] places the sea – or the oceans – as a common element to the different territories, and then provokes us about who has the right to navigate. From an apparently journalistic approach, field invested with the voice of truth and impartiality, the piece ressignifies the insistently present journalistic texts with another voice, less cold and more fallible. À deriva departs from memoir fabulations – original and traditional practices of survival – and goes towards the creation of escape strategies from a selective pandemic.
Mão invisível
6'38" Gools
It is undeniable: the most accurate charts and visual representations of reality are always limited and subject to distortions of perspective. Mão invisível [Invisible hand] takes this observation to develop a series of parallelisms between graphic animations, where the movement of the particles follows rules that supposedly govern market’s and society’s behavior, and parts of interviews with social scientists, economists and other researchers. However, there is no equivalence between the animations and the interviews, and the parallels mostly underline the limitations of models that attempt to predict how events will unfold in the real world.
CYBERSEXO19
9'30" Chico Ludermir
From the feature offered by dating apps that allows one to search for potential partners anywhere in the world, CYBERSEXO19 [CYBERSEX19] starts an exploration of the gay universe in the nine countries that kept their borders open to Brazilians during the pandemic. In a sort of immobile trip from the cell phone – which includes news about the places where homossexuality is not allowed –, the video documents the sometimes brief dialogues, talking about LGBT+ experience in the different cities visited and, in some cases, preceding an exchange of photos.
Todos os abraços que não te dei porque moro longe
5'58" Bisoro
In a sort of contemporary fable in a critical key, Todos abraços que não te dei porque moro longe [All the hugs I did not give you because I live afar] reflects on the territorialization of affections and the social markers that define possible routes to certain bodies. In the video, figures of mythological inspiration mix with the urban landscape and public transportation, in a somewhat melancholic journey in search for the suspension of the state of war – material, but also symbolic – against socially marked bodies.
Cercada de passarinhos
4'18" feane
There are talks nowadays, more and more constantly, about how we humans are more beings of the air than of the earth. The atmosphere is our home. From an interspecies listening (or maybe inter-matter), feane evokes the ironic contradiction between a certain anthropology tha insisted (insists) on the idea of a noble savage living in an inert nature on the one hand and, on the other, the chaotic poetry of the beautiful destruction machines. Will we know in this dispute to what extent we are still nature?
ComunicAÇÃO Circular
3' Dinian Calazans e Beatriz Souza
In ComunicAÇÃO Circular [Circular CommunicACTION], the body presents itself as a conceptual and material discourse of a project that attempts to connect the circularity of the dances of two traditional cultures – of the Northeast of Brazil and of Albania. In this video, the duo of directors develop a piece that evokes the rawness of a rehearsal and the relations built in these spaces of repetition, inviting other bodies to sew the complex nuclei of movements and to think of these choreographies as a construction of many feet, hands, heads and arms.
um negro está perdido. do you hear me?
5'51" Letícia Simões
Mixing resources of poetic and journalistic functions of language, um negro está perdido. do you hear me? [a black person is lost. do you hear me?] develops a reflection around the experiences of black bodies in the world, taking as departing points Brazil and the Central African Republic. The context of the two countries and their distinct states of internal war guide this video-essay between topics such as deterritorialization, immigration and the different manifestations of racialized power structures that act objectively and subjectively against these bodies.
Artists
Anti Ribeiro
São Cristóvão, Sergipe, 1995
Her practice sews research, creation and pedagogy in sound art and moving image, focused on sound as the main trigger of experiences. Ribeiro developed the pedagogical cycles Workshop of Afrofiction and Fiction as a weapon, and participated of artistic residencies at Oficina Francisco Brennand (PE), Pivô Pesquisa (SP), Lab.Suav (MA), Arte SESC (PE) and Solar dos Abacaxis (RJ), all in Brazil.
Mia Aragão
Olinda, Pernambuco, 1998
Graduated in Cinema and Audiovisual at the Federal University of Pernambuco. Directed the feature film Esse Cinema Não Possui Saídas de Emergência, about two experiences of occupation of abandoned film theaters in Olinda. Works at Ateliê Iza do Amparo organizing workshops, exhibitions and a film club.
Pedro Domingos
Olinda, Pernambuco, 1996
Worked as producer of artist exchange projects with GANDAIA arts (United Kingdom) and was assistant of the artists Aslan Cabral and Paula Boechat. In his practice, Domingos combines languages such as performance, photography and painting. In the last years he has been developing partnerships with different agents of Brazilian contemporary art, besides individual projects.
Rafa Nascimento
São Bernardo do Campo, São Paulo, 1992
Graduated in Cinema and Audiovisual at the Federal University of Pernambuco, directed the shorts Coração do Mar and Banzo, and was director of photography of FrevU. In 2024, produced his first project of VR, the 360º immersive video )e(. Nascimento produces and curates Alma no Olho film club, focused on African films and films of the black diaspora, and is the creator and coordinator of the Week of Black Moving Image.
Gools
Recife, Pernambuco, 1993
Digital artist and game developer, his practice connects video, graphic animation and interactive structures in different media. Gools works also as a VJ and in video-cenographic projects for music artists. As a developer, produced the games Pato Rouco, part of the release of the single of same name by Cassio Oli, and Séculos. Participated of the SSA Mapping Festival with the work Música Congelada, projected on the Nosso Senhor do Bonfim church.
Chico Ludermir
Olinda, Pernambuco, 1989
Transmedia artist, journalist and member of the collective Coquevideo, with a MA in Sociology at the Federal University of Pernambuco. Ludermir’s production crosses fields such as photography, cinema, literature, performance and popular culture. Directed the feature film O livro Incompleto das Deusas, the webseries No beat do Brega Funk and O Corpo da Cidade and the videoclipe Faz Ideia, awarded at Festcine 2019, and made the solo shows Entre and O nascer é comprido.
Bisoro
Recife, Pernambuco, 1999
Self-taught artist, initiated his production at the age of 15 with independent zines. His current practice includes painting, sewing and moving images, with the making of masks and clothes – as armours that protect the body, giving safety and power – used in street performances documented in videos as highlights.
feane
Olinda, Pernambuco, 1994
Graduated in Literature at the Federal University of Pernambuco and post-graduated in Visual Culture: Photography and Latin American Art at UNICAP, is film director and cultural producer. Indigenous of the Fulni-ô people, her artistic production is focused on the construction of narratives that cross identity, ancestrality and indigenous culture. Participates in the research group Indigenous Literature in Pernambuco.
Dinian Calazans
Nazaré da Mata, Pernambuco, 1998
Dancer, choreographer and art educator, graduated in Dance at the Federal University of Pernambuco. Researches sensuality in dance and its relations with booty dancing, also known as twerk. Participated as dancer and jury of the I Twerk Festival Recife. Presently is part of the ballet of the singer Uana. Worked as a go-go girl in Morocco and Bulgaria.
Beatriz Rijo
Recife, Pernambuco, 1998
Dancer, yogini and art educator, graduated in Dance at the Federal University of Pernambuco. Researches and teaches Investigative Dance, which aims to integrate her two areas of interest – dance and yoga –, connecting the study of movement and the investigation of emotions. Her academic practice is focused on the traditions and the search for the self, with works around Brazilian popular and hindu traditions, related to yoga.
Letícia Simões
Salvador, Bahia, 1988
Poet, screenwriter and film director. Casa, her last feature film, is a multigeneration essay on the women of her family. PhD candidate, her research debates ways of building historical and social memory through the autobiographical reinventions in contemporary cinema produced by black women. Simões is resident artist at In-Exile LAB, PLAKA Criatório and Fundação Lapa do Lobo.
Training actions
Encontro com
Gabriel Bogossian
BREVE
HISTÓRIA DO
ISOLAMENTO SOCIAL POR
IMAGENS
Encontro com
LIA LETICIA
DEPOIS DA IMAGEM
Encontro com
LOURIVAL CUQUINHA
TRÁFEGOS, TRÂNSITOS E TRÁFICOS
Encontro com
LIA LETÍCIA E OS/AS ARTISTAS BEATRIZ RIJO, DINIAN CALAZANS, FEANE E RAFA NASCIMENTO
Encontro com
GABRIEL BOGOSSIAN E ANTI RIBEIRO, BISORO E GOOLS
Encontro com
LOURIVAL CUQUINHA E CHICO LUDEMIR, LETÍCIA SIMÕES, MIA ARAGÃO E PEDRO DOMINGOS
About us
Clarice Hoffmann
COORDINATOR
Clarice Hoffmann (Rio de Janeiro, 1967). Journalist and cultural producer, Hoffmann works in the cultural scene of Pernambuco since the 1990’s, creating and coordinating projects such as O Obscuro Fichário dos Artistas Mundanos, funded by Rumos – Itaú Cultural, and Macunaíma Colorau, funded by Funcultura. Among her numerous works it is worth highlighting Nave Tropical, composed of urban interventions, performances and exhibitions shown in Berlin and Recife. Writer of graphic novels, she was among the five finalists of the 2020 Jabuti Prize in the category graphic novel with the work O Obscuro Fichário dos Artistas Mundanos. Her last work, Pedra D’Água, was published in 2023 by CEPE HQ.
Gabriel Bogossian
CURATORS
Gabriel Bogossian (Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, 1983). Independent curator and essayist, Bogossian was the curator of the 21st Biennial of Contemporary Art Sesc_Videobrasil | Imagined Communities (São Paulo), the Screen City Biennial | Ecologies Lost, Found and Continued (Stavanger) and of the VideoEx Festival (Zurich), and of solo shows by Ícaro Lira, Minerva Cuevas, Virginia de Medeiros and Akram Zaatari, among others. He translated Americanism and fordism, by Antonio Gramsci, and The vexations of Art, by Svetlana Alpers. Bogossian was the author of O contato e o contágio, with Ailton Krenak, and of essays on Hrair Sarkissian’s work, as well as the video installation Broken Spectre, by Richard Mosse.
Lia Letícia
CURATORS
Lia Letícia (Viamão, Rio Grande do Sul, 1975). Artist and curator. Her works explore the extended field of art, in the tension between artistic practices and their supposed autonomy, and are exhibited in art shows as well as film festivals. Letícia works as art educator in projects aimed to the development of experimentations with the moving image, such as Videoarte para Crianças and Escola Engenho, and workshops like Depois da Imagem. She was the curator of Cinecão project, at Galeria Maumau (Recife), and of the III Palco Preto, and part of the curatorial team of the 2023 edition of Abre Alas, at A Gentil Carioca Gallery (Rio de Janeiro). She is also the curator of Canto da Sereia Film Club, held monthly at Embaixada da Ciranda.
Lourival Cuquinha
CURATORS
Lourival Cuquinha (Recife, Pernambuco, 1975). Artist. His works explore varied media, such as physical objects, actions, videos, installations and interventions in the urban landscape, and question the status of the “work of art” to reflect on how artists currently position themselves in relation to the art system. Cuquinha gained international recognition after carrying out actions during art fairs such as Frieze in London, ArtRio and Miami Basel, in which he auctioned his own works made with money bills sewn as flags. He has a master’s degree in film from the University of Wales, Newport, United Kingdom.
Credits
Nove Solos
Artists
Anti Ribeiro, Beatriz Rijo, Bisoro, Chico Ludermir, Dinian Calazans, Feane, Gools, Letícia Simões, Mia Aragão, Pedro Domingos and Rafa Nascimento
Visual identity, design, motion graphics and web design
Moacyr Campelo
Website
Guilherme Saraiva, Jair Gomes and Yasmin Gomes
English version
Gabriel Bogossian
Mastering and subtitling
Daniel Barros
Sign language interpreter – Video works
Carlos Oliveira
Sign language interpreter – Lives
Bruno Cardoso and Micaias Calvário
Social media
Maya Santos
Design for social media
Lili Nascimento
Production premiére Brazil
Boa Hora
Production premiére Switzerland
Association Le Renversé and Tilovita Produções
Acknowledgements
Ana Carmen Palhares, Ana Glória Melcop, Dayse Marques, Ernesto Barros, Evaristo Nunes, Fernando Duarte, Jarbas Barbosa, Jacira Frois, Julien Ineichen, Liliana Tavares, Léo Banchini, Luiz Joaquim, Mariana Nunes, Mariângela Galvão, Myllena Matos, Nicolas Waechte, Unidade de Artes Visuais da DIMECA da Fundação Joaquim Nabuco – Fundaj e Ressources Urbaines (Matthias Solenthaler).