Sabrina Barrios

Sabrina Barrios
01.08.2018 - 31.08.2018

Born in Santa Maria (Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil), lives and works in New York, USA. She holds a Bachelor Degree in Graphic Design from Universidade Federal de Santa Maria  (UFSM) and a Master’s Degree in Visual Arts from The Pratt Institute, New York.

Sabrina’s practice investigates the gaps in human history as a way of questioning our ideas about reality. Mixing science and quantum physics, mythology and conspiracy theories, she uses symbolism and geometry in order to bring to discussion hidden or misinterpreted facts.

Her most recent installations include: “Escape Plan” (Rio de Janeiro, 2018); “Epic of Creation” (Finland, 2017); “Birth” (Poland, 2017); “The Earth Experiment” (USA, 2017); “Ley Lines” (USA, 2017); “The Horse Rider and the Eagle” (Brussels, 2016) and “In Finities” (USA, 2012). Her paintings have been exhibited at the 4th Biennial of the Bronx Museum (New York, 2017), JustMAD (Madrid, 2016), Anita Schwartz Gallery (Rio de Janeiro, 2014/15) . Among the residences that she participated, we highlight: The Studios – MAS MoCA (USA, 2017); Arteles (Finland, 2017); Bronx-AIM Museum (New York, 2016); Bains Connective (Brussels, 2016) and The Wassaic Project (New York, 2015).

During her residency at Despina, Sabrina continued her research – a journey between the contrasting poles of Rio de Janeiro’s social geography, using art as an instrument of reflection, resistance and change.

More information
sabrinabarrios.com

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by Frederico Pellachin

 

Maria Marvila

Maria Marvila
12.07.2018 - 26.08.2018

Lives and works in Barcelona, ​​Spain. She is currently doing her Master’s Degree in Research and Artistic Production at the Faculty of Fine Arts – University of Barcelona, ​​where she also holds a Bachelor in Arts. During her graduation, she participated in an exchange at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia. Her work has already been shown at “Frontex Cortex”, during a residence in Arraiolos (Portugal); “lokal_30” gallery, in Warsaw (Poland) and at “Mecànic”, in Barcelona.

Marvila’s research is focused on the development of the relationship between individuals and the spaces they inhabit, and their subsequent interactions. Using the action of walking as a way to approach and occupy a space, and later perceiving it as a living organism, she observes the features of an environment and tries to understand it, activating all the senses, often mutating her own attitude to become part of it, through forms of both physical and mental camouflage, and imitation. Having photography, sculpture and installation as her main supports, Marvila has produced multiple reflections and representations of the universes she found, with a recent transition from purely visual work to a more tactile projection of ideas.

During her residency in Rio de Janeiro, Marvila identified in the spaces through which she passed marks of events and past moments, marks of constant mutations in the landscape, a track of scars imprinted on concrete skin covered by old and new wounds.

More information
www.mariamarvila.com

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by Frederico Pellachin

Marcela Fauth

Marcela Fauth
01.07.2018 - 31.08.2018

Born in Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul), lives and works in Rio de Janeiro. Fauth holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Visual Arts with a specialization in Costume Design from SENAI-CETIQT/RJ and a Degree in Sewing and Modeling from SENAI/RS. She has participated in the Contemporary Art Foundation Course at Parque Lage School of Visual Arts (EAV). She is the author of the book “That was not there”, published by Casa 27 in 2015, and is, currently, an activist in the feminist collective “Vem pra luta amada”.

Her artistic practice takes shape day-to-day, in the investigation of tasks and work processes, in the symbologies present in the development of actions and in her own positioning before the world, as a woman, as a worker and as an artist. In addition to addressing issues related to the feminine universe and the expression of the anguish of this genre in her work, Fauth also seeks a deep problematization of themes such as self-image / self-representation, alterity, body and its unfolding in the sociocultural and political context of the contemporary world, among others, always placing the performative body as the main support. Photography, video, poetry, print-making, text, clothing and installation have been used by the artist as forms of recording the experiences of the sentimental-body, the passage and the impermanences of time.

During the period of her residence at Despina, the artist continued her research on Performance and Femininity, proposing a dialogue with several women in a process of collective creation.

More information
http://cargocollective.com/mfauth

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by Frederico Pellachin

Isabella Lescure

Isabella Lescure
01.07.2018 - 31.07.2018

Lives and works in São Paulo, where she is a visual arts graduate student  at Fundação Armando Álvares Penteado (FAAP). Her practice explores invisible or forgotten situations of daily life, which are reconfigured through perosnal memory signs. As she absorbs and translates the situations in her surroundings, her own sensory experience transforms what she chooses to reconfigure, allowing the emergence of new meanings in the final result. This process can be materialized in painting, collage, embroidery and objects.

During her residence at Despina, Lescure continued to explore the unfolding of her painting practice and to delve into her latest experiments. The overlap of transparency and the fragility of paper (which forms silent graphics) were starting points for her research. One aspect of her practice is not to get stuck into models, allowing the materials and their objects of study to play an active role in the creative process.

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Felipe Rivas San Martín

Felipe Rivas San Martín
01.05.2018 - 30.06.2018

Art and Activism in Latin America – year III

Chilean artist living and working in Valencia, Spain, where he is a fellowship PhD student at the National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICYT) – Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV). He holds a Master’s Degree in Visual Arts from the University of Chile. His practice includes painting, drawing, performance, video and it’s related to technological image (virtual interfaces, digital codecs). He is the co-founder of the Sexual Dissidence Student Collective (CUDS), and has been participating in this activism platform since 2002. He also directed the magazines “Torcida” (2005) – about culture and queer criticism, and Disidenciasexual.cl (2009). Rivas links activism and artistic production with research, text and curatorship in relation to arts, politics and technologies, queer theory, post-feminism and performativity.

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ART AND ACTIVISM IN LATIN AMERICA is a Despina project, with the support of the Dutch organization Prince Claus Fund. The project extends for three years (2016, 2017 and 2018). Each year, a theme will guide a series of actions, including occupations, workshops, talks, film screenings, exhibitions, public talks with important names of contemporary artistic + activist thought and a residency programme. For this third edition, the project brings DISSENT AND DESTRUCTION as its main theme and it runs between May and June 2018.

Danitza Luna

Danitza Luna
01.05.2018 - 30.06.2018

Art and Activism in Latin America – year III (2018)

Lives and works in La Paz, Bolivia. Luna is a cartoonist and graphic designer, graduated in Visual Arts from the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, specializing in sculpture. Since 2011, she has been part of the anarcho-feminist movement “Mujeres Creando”, one of the most important and influential political platforms in the country, which develops artistic intervention and performance projects in public spaces, as well as art and screen printing workshops and educational programs in universities and women’s unions.

Amongst the recent exhibitions she participated as part of “Mujeres Creando”, we highlight:  “Muros Blandos”, held at the Salvador Allende Solidarity Museum in Santiago de Chile (2017), where she developed, alongside artists and activists Esther Angollo and Maria Galindo, a series of provocative and ironic murals that brought the attention to some political and religious controversies around the discussions on gender identity. In 2016, she developed (also with Esther and Maria) a commissioned work for the Bolivian International Biennial of Arts –  the public intervention projects “Altar Blasfemo” and “Escudo Anarco-Feminista Antichauvinista”, which took place on the external wall of the National Museum of Art City of La Paz. In 2015, she participated in the Medellin International Art Meeting – “Historias Locales / Prácticas Globales”, in Colombia, where she coordinated with other members of the collective the screen printing workshop  “Grafica Feminista, No acepto ser cosificada” in the Muesu of Antioquia. The results of this experiment were displayed on a public mural in the streets of Medellin.

During her residency in Rio de Janeiro, Luna will coordinate a “feminist graphic workshop”, which will take place on 7 different dates during the months of May and June. The results of these meetings will be compiled in a printed memory. More information to be posted soon.

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ART AND ACTIVISM IN LATIN AMERICA is a Despina project, with the support of the Dutch organization Prince Claus Fund. The project extends for three years (2016, 2017 and 2018). Each year, a theme will guide a series of actions, including occupations, workshops, talks, film screenings, exhibitions, public talks with important names of contemporary artistic + activist thought and a residency programme. For the third edition, the project brings DISSENT AND DESTRUCTION as its main theme and it runs between May and June 2018.

Ana Lira

Ana Lira
01.05.2018 - 30.06.2018

Art and Activism in Latin America – year III (2018)

Lives and works in Recife (Pernambuco, Brazil). Her work seek to discuss political experiences and collective actions as processes of mediation. Power relations and implications in the dynamics of communication are among the main issues of her art projects, which articulate visual narratives, press material, printed media and independent publications. She is a specialist in Theory and Criticism of Culture and in recent years has  developed independent research and curatorial work, as well as educational projects articulated with visual arts. Lira has participated in more than seven collectives for two decades. She is the head of the educational projects Visual CitiesEntre-Frestas and Possible Circuits, the latter related to the elaboration of photo-books and photo-zines.

She received the 2015 Funarte Arte Contemporânea Award for the Non-Dito exhibition, which was presented at MABEU / CCBEU in Belém do Pará (2017) and at Capibaribe Centro da Imagem, in Recife (2015). She is the author of the book Voto, published by Pingado Prés, in 2014 (1ª ed.) and 2015 (2ª ed.). The book is part now of the São Paulo Pinacoteca collection and also of the Museum of UFPA Photo-book Collection. She is also a researcher in audiovisual projects – currently Lira is doing a research for the Terrane project, a visual narrative about women working in construction in the Brazilian semi-arid region, an experience related to the Casa da Mulher do Nordeste  (“Northeast Women’s House”).

During her residency at Despina, Ana intends to investigate the relationships between invisibility and power, through the mapping of knowledge and the sharing of information-culture which does not pass through large communication circuits.

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ART AND ACTIVISM IN LATIN AMERICA is a Despina project, with the support of the Dutch organization Prince Claus Fund. The project extends for three years (2016, 2017 and 2018). Each year, a theme will guide a series of actions, including occupations, workshops, talks, film screenings, exhibitions, public talks with important names of contemporary artistic + activist thought and a residency programme. For the third edition, the project brings DISSENT AND DESTRUCTION as its main theme and it runs between May and June 2018.

Christian Danielewitz

Christian Danielewitz
01.03.2018 - 30.04.2018

A Danish artist and writer whose work revolves around environmental degradation, with a particular focus on the ecological repercussions of the global mining industry, that is, the extraction and processing of minerals used in the production of contemporary image – and communcation technologies. An offbeat traveller of sorts, Danielewitz uses his status as an artist to venture into contested territory, bringing back images, objects and toxic substances, exposing the flipside of human engineering: explosion, excavation, exclusion, exhaustion and finally extinction. He is particularly interested in hidden sites of contamination and invisible forms of exposure, such as the uncanny nature of radiation.

Danielewitz holds an MFA from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. He has recently had solo exhibitions at 3331 Arts Chiyoda in Tokyo, at Black Sesame Space in Beijing, and at Fotogalleriet [format] in Malmö (in collaboration w. Anu Ramdas). He has participated in group shows at Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Fotografisk Center, and Tranen Contemporary Art Center.

During his residency at Despina, which had the support from the Danish Arts Foundation and LFFoghts Fond, Danielewitz developed an installation project titled “Bento Rodrigues Steel Displacements (after Robert Smithson)”, which refers to a 1969 work by American artist Robert Smithson (1938-1973) in relation to the worst environmental disaster in Brazilian history, the Samarco dam collapse, which happened in the south-eastern state of Minas Gerais in 2015.

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Sofia Geld

Sofia Geld
01.02.2018 - 31.03.2018

A Brazilian director and producer based in Brooklyn, New York. She is interested in making work that explores the places where artistry and activism intersect. Sofia received her B.A. in anthropology from Bard College, and has since been working in the field of documentary film. She was selected to be a UnionDocs Collaborative Studios fellow, and independently has directed and produced music videos and short films. Her first short film HUSH screened both in New York and Moscow. She is currently directing her first feature length documentary BEBA, and is the producer of the Brooklyn based #RESIST film series run in collaboration with UnionDocs, Skylight inc. and Remezcla.

During her residency at Despina, Sofia developed a video-installation project entitled “Crosswords“. Through the voices and stories of seven women from different classes, races and ages, the project investigates the ways in which these women’s experiences intersect in a city as contradictory as Rio de Janeiro. The video installation took place in one of our exhibition rooms during “Senado Tomado”, our monthly open studios event (which happened on 27 April). Check here more information about this event (in Portuguese). Follow below Crossword’s trailer and a short statement written by Raphael Fonseca, one of the curators who met Sofia during the period of her residency.

 

 

More information
www.bebafilm.com
BEBA Film | @bebafilm

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by Frederico Pellachin

Haidar Mahdi

Haidar Mahdi
01.01.2018 - 31.03.2018

Lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden. Graduated at Konstfack, he also holds a master’s degree from The Royal Academy of Fine Arts – both institutions located in Stockholm. His practice bears the stamp of his multicultural background (mother Polish, father Iraqi), manifested through a broad interest in many materials and techniques, which most prominently include clay and ceramics. His objects and sculptures mock the opulent and the over-adorned, creating a feel of kitschyness. Gathering “cheap” materials that emulate the real thing has become part of his process too. During a three-month residency at Despina, the artist spent his time searching for new materials and working on new forms of combining them.

Haidar Mahdi’s residency at Despina was generously supported by Iaspis – the Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s international programme for Visual and Applied Artists (www.konstnarsnamnden.se)

More information
webiste: www.haidarmahdi.tumblr.com
instagram: @mahdihaidar

Curatorial statement
by Raphael Fonseca

The use of pottery, color and a visual language close to kitsch outlines much of Haidar Mahdi’s research so far. The period he spent in Brazil, curiously enough, led him to opposing responses to his previous works. Avoiding clichés such as the tropicality and the chromatism often associated to certain conceptions of Brazilianness, the artist developed works of an industrial character and with repetition of black and metallic colors. Inspired by geometric patterns found on ceilings of buildings and churches, Mahdi created pieces made of leather and metal in which these geometric structures are central and present themselves to the public as images on the border between sculpture and two-dimensional fruition. Much closer to electronic music and sadomasochism than samba, they are works that point to other layers in his research and contrast in an interesting way with his previous pieces. Silence and symmetry are now at the front line  – at least for now.

Camera and editing: Frederico Pellachin
Song: “Metal on Metal” (Kraftwerk, 1977)

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