Artists | Despina

Mariana Sameiro

01.08.2017 - 31.08.2017

Born in Portugal, works and lives in London. Sameiro is a multidisciplinary artist and designer, graduated from the Royal College of Art with an MA in Visual Communication, where she is currently a visiting tutor.

Her personal practice looks at the new geological epoch known as the Anthropocene and the huge impact that humanity has on Earth. The Anthropocene is pathing the way for a hybrid type of material where the organic and inorganic are combined together, and the man-made and the natural are juxtaposed. Material resources of an industrial past are now forming future fossils and strata of man-made plastic composites. Sameiro explores and translates these ideas and unfold a narrative about Anthropocene, where future geology and archaeology become a narration of human culture.

In addition to her personal practice, she has worked as an independent curator, organising shows on Utopias/Dystopias as well as on digital and physical environments. The shows she organised took place in London, Berlin, Lisbon and Ithaca (Greece).During her residency at Despina, Sameiro intends to look at natural disasters and geological violations as a starting point for a possible future scenario. A scenario wherein fossils of the future are the ones we live with as a consequence of the increasing piles of waste. Taking this as a reference, she will do visual research for an installation/sculpture and a participatory/movable installation that would work as a workshop and performance place, its purpose will be to facilitate events on this topic to a wider public.

More information

marianasameiro.com

marianasameiro@gmail.com

instagram: marianasameiro

twitter: @MarianaSameiro

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Romy Pocztaruk

01.07.2017 - 31.07.2017

Lives and works in Porto Alegre, Brazil. She holds a master’s degree in Visual Poetics from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). Pocztaruk’s photography and video works deal with simulations and the positions from which the artist interacts with different places.

She has held solo exhibitions at the CDF Centro de Fotografia de Montevideo (2016), Centro Cultural São Paulo (2015), SIM Gallery (2014), Galeria Gestual (2014) and Goethe Institute of Porto Alegre (2013). Among the collective exhibitions: Uma coleção particular (2015), Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brasil; Telón De Fondo (2015), Backroom Caracas (in partnership with Fundação Cisneros), Venezuela; 31ª Bienal de São Paulo (2014); BRICS (2014), Oi Futuro Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Convite à Viagem – Rumos Artes Visuais (2011-13), Itaú Cultural, São Paulo/Rio de Janeiro/Goiânia, Brazil; 9ª Bienal do Mercosul (2013), Porto Alegre, Brasil; Region 0 – The Latino Video Art Festival of New York (2013), Nova York; 64º Salão Paranaense (2012), Museu de Arte Contemporânea do Paraná, Curitiba, Brazil; Prêmio Diário Contemporâneo de Fotografia (2012), Casa das Onze Janelas, Belém do Pará, Brazil; Percursos Simulados(2011), Paço das Artes, São Paulo, Brazil; Simulated Pathways (2011), Skalitzer 140, Berlim, Germany. She has also taken part in artist residence programmes in China (Sunhoo Creatives in Residency), Germany. Berlim (Takt Kunstprojektraum), Instituto Sacatar (Bahia, Brazil) and New York (Bronx Museum), sponsored by the Iberê Camargo grant for artist residencies. Also participated in residences in the Bronx Museum (New York), funded by Bolsa Iberê Camargo; China (Sunhoo Creatives in Residency), Berlin (Takt Kunstprojektraum) and Instituto Sacatar in Bahia.

In 2016, Romy was awarded by Premio Foco Bradesco ArtRio with a residence at Despina in Rio de Janeiro. During her stay in Rio, she continued a project on the Brazilian secret nuclear program, exploring historical archives and research materials.

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Ana Zegarra

01.07.2017 - 31.07.2017

Lives and works in Lima, Peru.

Zegarra develops her work from different physical and material means, mainly by using techniques of engraving and ceramics. She is interested in observing the moment when things are changing – in terms of collapse, contrast or opposition. From this point of view, the artist is able to play with the limit of meaning and materiality of things, with fantasy and mystique, with the “meta-corporeal.”

Her practice revolves around human existence and the uncertain and changing tendency that accompanies it. In this process, Zegarra seeks to highlight fragility as an inherent characteristic of the individual and also the systems of belief, feelings, identities and cultures, evoking the paradox and the bizarre. Not to mention the fragility of material seen in time, creating archeological references and metaphors in the “body-territory” fusion.

During her residence at Despina, Zegarra conceived a series of “ruin-objects”. In this process, the artist explored from the primitive forms to the pottery (and its fusion with the landscape), taking into account the passage of time and the power of nature over human creations.

More information
www.anazegarra.com
www.anazegarraartwork.tumblr.com
instagram: @satrina_

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Shachaf Predilailo

01.07.2017 - 31.07.2017

Lives and works in Tel Aviv (Israel). Graduated from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design (Jerusalem), specializing in ceramics and glass design.

After a period dedicated to more traditional materials such as glass and ceramics, Predilailo now turns to more ephemeral and transient materials like paper and salt. During her residency at Despina, the artist sought inspiration from the dizzying amount of materials available in the commercial area surrounding the studio space. Her intention in this process was to experiment with research and create a subjective mapping of environments driven by her own point of view and experience.

More information
www.shahafpredilailo.crevado.com
shachafp@gmail.com

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Lyz Parayzo

01.05.2017 - 30.06.2017

Art and Activism in Latin America – year II (2017)

Lives and works in Rio de Janeiro. Manicurist and “puta-porn-terrorist”, Lyz Parayzo began her studies at the School of Visual Arts (EAV) at Parque Lage and started to invade art galleries with her aesthetic-political interventions. Like a virus, she has been subverting the power protocols of institutional spaces by blurring the boundaries of what is official. She has the body as her main work support and her daily performativity as a research platform. Parayzo’s plastic bombs destabilize heteronormative and colonial technologies, they are anabolic projections of her existence. The artist has been developing video-installations with post-pornographic content, military jewels and is currently researching the performances of gender and class from the perspective of the color in her “Salão Parayzo” project, a nomadic device in which she acts as a manicurist. Lyz Parayzo has been nominated for the Professional Art Investor Award – PIPA in 2017. Her residence at Despina is part of the activities of the second edition of the project Art and Activism in Latin America.

More information
cargocollective.com/lyzparayzo
lyzparayzo.tumblr.com

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Photos by Frederico Pellachin, Raquel Romero-Faz and João Roma

Rafael Bqueer

01.05.2017 - 30.06.2017

Art and Activism in Latin America – year II (2017)

Born in Belém do Pará, lives and works in Rio de Janeiro. Carnavalesco, costume designer, drag queen and bachelor of Visual Arts from the Federal University of Pará – UFPA. Bquerr got recently a grant from the Santander Exchange Program – School of Fine Arts / UFRJ. He also took several courses at the School of Visual Arts (EAV) at Parque Lage and received a grant to take part in the “Poetic Immersions” course at Casa França-Brasil. His residence at Despina is part of the activities of the second edition of the project Art and Activism in Latin America.

More information
banderaufpa@gmail.com

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Gracey Zhang

01.05.2017 - 31.05.2017

Born and raised in Vancouver (Canada) – of Chinese and Taiwanese origin – , currently living in New York City (USA).

Newly graduated from the RISD (Rhode Island School of Design), Zhang is a freelance illustrator. Her practice often deals in narrative, observing the motivations and actions stemming from the lives of others, and examining the physical environments they inhabit.

Her work ranges from large paintings, drawings, to editorial illustrations that attempt to convey the emotions of a person or group.

Zhang was warded a scholarship by The Lighton International Artists Exchange Program (LIAEP) to participate in Despina Residency Programme in May 2017.

More information
website: www.graceyzhang.com
instagram: @graceyyz
tumblr: graceyzhang.tumblr.com
vimeo: vimeo.com/graceyzhang

Supported by

Curatorial statement
by Carla Hermann
In Portuguese only, click here

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by Frederico Pellachin

Catarina Cubelo

01.04.2017 - 30.04.2017

Vive e trabalha em Londres (Inglaterra). É mestre em Artes Visuais pela Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. Foi recentemente selecionada para o Mullehnlowe Nova Award e Red Mansion Art Prize.

Na sua prática artística, Catarina se interessa pela performatividade e a temporalidade das imagens. O seu trabalho envolve uma pesquisa sobre o tempo que as coisas precisam para se conhecerem e a importância do movimento do corpo como condição da tridimensionalidade das coisas. Essa pesquisa, por sua vez, é materializada em performance, escultura, escrita, desenho ou vídeo.

Durante a sua participação no Programa de Residências Despina, Catarina pretende investigar a diferença que marca a língua em potência. De conhecer esta língua, que é a sua, através da experiência simbólica do corpo em movimento. Uma pesquisa que constitui temporalidade como uma atividade de dinâmicas e afetos, que tenta engendrar hipóteses de teorias de percepção como uma teoria da experiência. O estranho que se encontra no caminho do passeio é uma postura a adotar para recuperar a experiência.

Mais informações
www.catarinacubelo.eu

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Em breve

Maria Gracia Ego-Aguirre

01.04.2017 - 30.04.2017

Lives and works in Lima, Peru. Specialized in Sculpture from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, her practice exlores nature as a manifesting body and the human vulnerability intrinsic to its “immensity”.

Currently at Despina, Maria is working on a series of territorial bodies related to the disorderly geography of Rio de Janeiro and its connection with human presence. A personal view on the “cracks” and “breakdowns” of the landscapes and the uncontrollable ground.

Among her recent exhbitions, we highlight the collective show “Haciendo La Audicion” at Lima’s Museum Of Contemprary Art (MAC) in 2016.

More information
instagram: @mujernevado
gmail: mgegoaguirrealvarez@gmail.com

Paola Bascón

01.04.2017 - 30.04.2017

Lives and works in Berlin and La Paz. Graduated from the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design, Paola has worked for several years as an assistant and producer in theater and performance projects in Germany.

Her work can be defined as a curatorial and artistic practice about syncretistic rituals. Using fieldwork as a starting point, she tries to portray the role and use of handcrafted objects and the relationship of rituals to personal and collective memory.

Recently, Paola has developed an artistic and curatorial project about Alasitas, a religious festivity that involves the production and trading of miniature objects – a representation of wishes – as well as their ritual practices. The gathered material is displayed in an exhibition combined with video, sound and installation.

During her residency at Despina, a complementary research will take place in order to deepen the understanding of “ex-votos” – a similar ritual and tradition in Brazil -, celebrated through the offering of objects that represent granted wishes. Taking video as the principal tool/medium, the result will try to create a dialog between these two rituals, between asking a wish and thanking for their accomplishment.

More information
instagram.com/paolabascon
paolabascon@gmail.com

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