Author: Marina Resende Santos

Perto de Lá < > Close to There: Inaê Moreira and Alexandria Eregbu in Conversation (English Version)

Published by Marina Resende Santos

This interview has been edited for clarity and length, and translated for our readers in Brazil. Leia este artigo em português. Inaê Moreira: Hi Alexandria, pleasure to meet you! I’m an artist from Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. I work with body arts, dance and performance. Through my work I have been investigating issues involving ancestry and Black memory. I would like to know what you have created in this field: Black body, ancestry, memory? Alexandria Eregbu: Hi Inaê! There are several works throughout my practice which address the Black body, memory, and ancestry. From a materiality standpoint–one of the primary reasons I began working with indigo dye came from my curiosity to learn more about Black people’s contributions to textile history. This history was not one that was acknowledged during my time in art school while studying fibers, or artmaking period for that matter. Intellectually, I wanted to immerse myself in more resources that addressed West Africa’s connections to cloth and performativity as a means to better inform my understanding of cultural and traditional activities taking …

Perto de Lá < > Close to There: Inaê Moreira and Alexandria Eregbu in Conversation (Portuguese Version)

Published by Marina Resende Santos

Esta entrevista foi editada para garantir clareza e comprimento, e foi traduzida para nossos leitores no Brasil. Read this in English. Inaê Moreira: Oi Alexandria, muito prazer! Sou uma artista de salvador, bahia, brasil. Trabalho com as artes do corpo, dança e performance. Através do meu trabalho tenho investigando questões que envolvem ancestralidade e memória negra. Gostaria de saber o que você tem criado nesse campo: corpo negro, ancestralidade, memória? Alexandria Eregbu: Oi Inaê! Há muitos trabalhos dentro da minha prática que lidam com o corpo negro, memória, e ancestralidade. Do ponto de vista da materialidade- uma das razões principais pelas quais eu comecei a trabalhar com a tintura do índigo veio da minha curiosidade para aprender mais sobre a contribuição negra à história da produção têxtil. Essa história não era reconhecida durante meu tempo na escola de arte, quando me concentrei em fibras. Intelectualmente, eu queria estar imersa em mais recursos que se refiram às conexões da África ocidental com os tecidos e com a performatividade como maneira de melhor informar meu entendimento de atividades …

Perto de Lá < > Close to There: Adriana Araujo and Josh Rios in Conversation (English Version)

Published by Marina Resende Santos

This interview has been edited for clarity and length, and translated for our readers in Brazil. Leia este artigo em português. Adriana Araujo: I would like to start our encounter from the middle, from this time of here and now, constituting ourselves continuously. At this very moment, I am sitting beside a tree which I call Generosa [‘Generous’]. It is a mango tree at the house where I live that gives juicy and sweet fruit, shelters birds, lizards, bats, and ants; among other living beings, some invisible. Besides containing a whole world in itself, Generosa gives shade and mitigates the heat on sunny days in the town where I have lived for a little less than five years, Santa Maria da Vitória. Here, we have intense sun almost every day (sometimes I think the evenings too). The sky dawned today partially cloudy, but most days the sky is very blue. When I miss Salvador, the city where I grew up and spent most of my life, too much, I just need to look up to the …

Perto de Lá < > Close to There: Adriana Araujo and Josh Rios in Conversation (Portuguese Version)

Published by Marina Resende Santos

Esta entrevista foi editada para garantir clareza e comprimento, e foi traduzida para nossos leitores no Brasil. Read this in English. Adriana Araujo: Gostaria de começar nosso encontro pelo meio, esse tempo aqui agora, nos constituindo continuamente.  Estou neste momento ao lado de uma árvore a quem chamo de Generosa, é uma mangueira do quintal da casa que vivo, que dá frutos suculentos e doces, ela abriga pássaros, lagartixas, morcegos, formigas, entre outros seres vivos, alguns invisíveis. Além de abrigar um mundo inteiro em si, Generosa produz sombra e ameniza o calor nos dias ensolarados da cidade que vivo faz pouco menos de cinco anos, Santa Maria da Vitória. Aqui quase todos os dias (às vezes penso que as noites também) são de sol intenso. O céu hoje amanheceu parcialmente nublado, mas quase sempre o céu é bem azul. Quando sinto muita saudade de Salvador, o lugar onde nasci e vivi a maior parte da minha vida, é só olhar para o céu e me inventar mais perto do mar. Pelo azul a gente quase acredita que …

Perto de Lá < > Close to There: João Oliveira and Amina Ross in Conversation (English Version)

Published by Marina Resende Santos

This interview has been edited for clarity and length, and translated for our readers in Brazil. Leia este artigo em português. Amina:  Hi João. I was looking at the prints made of the unfolded plastic animal skins and I think we share an interest in what exists beyond the surface of our everyday. As you put it so well, I see your interest in “a force capable of rupturing the surface of that to which we’ve become used.”Is there anything you hope to find in the unfolding of a body? In the rupturing of the surface? Is there anything that you haven’t found yet? What keeps you going in this exploration? João: Amina, hi! I will try to answer as best as I can, because these questions don’t have easy or immediate answers. I still haven’t found out anything, and I don’t think I’ve ever done it for an answer or for what I expect to find. I keep exploring because of the moving force that even the most banal question can have. In that sense, …

Perto de Lá < > Close to There: João Oliveira and Amina Ross in Conversation (Portuguese Version)

Published by Marina Resende Santos

Esta entrevista foi editada para garantir clareza e comprimento, e foi traduzida para nossos leitores no Brasil. Read this in English. Amina: Oi João, eu estava olhando as gravuras feitas com as peles de animais de plástico abertas e achei que temos um interesse em comum naquilo que existe alem da superficie do dia-a-dia. Como você expressou tão bem, eu vejo seu interesse em uma “força capaz de romper a superfície daquilo que se acostumou.” Existe alguma coisa que você procura encontrar no desdobramento de um corpo? No rompimento da superfície? Há ainda alguma coisa que você não encontrou? O que continua a te mover nessa exploração? João: Amina, oi. Vou tentar responder como posso porque não são perguntas de respostas fáceis ou imediatas. Ainda não encontrei nada e acho que nunca fiz pela resposta ou pelo que espero encontrar. Me mantenho nessa exploração pela própria força movente que uma pergunta, por mais banal que seja, pode ter e, nesse sentido, é aí que a superfície se rompe porque uma pergunta move outra e movendo mais uma, continua. …

Perto de Lá < > Close to There: Candai Calmon and Anna Martine Whitehead in Conversation

Published by Marina Resende Santos

Candai Calmon is a dance artist and educator based in Salvador, Brazil. Candai has obtained an artistic education in Brazil and Uruguay, with a concentration on contemporary dance and Afro-referential, decolonial, and feminist practices. She holds a Bachelor’s in Gender and Diversity Studies and a Master’s in Dance from the Universidade Federal da Bahia. In her current practice, she creates workshops and immersive artistic experiences based on dance and improvisation with Black women in the quilombos [1] of Bahia. Anna Martine Whitehead is a multidisciplinary artist and dancer based in Chicago. Their work and research address a Black, queer relationship to time, as well as the prison industrial complex and the experience of incarceration. Anna Martine Whitehead has held residencies at 3Arts, Headlands, High Concept Labs, and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago. They have also written for a number of publications and lectured at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Candai Calmon and Anna Martine Whitehead are two dance artists working through Black, queer, and female experiences. Both are part of …

Perto de Lá <> Close to There: TANTO and Edra Soto in Conversation

Published by Marina Resende Santos

Note: Portuguese sections of this interview are in bold, and the English sections are un-bolded. Daniel Sabóia, Patricia Almeida and Fabio Steque are the members of TANTO Criações Compartilhadas, a collective art and design practice in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. The three artists have degrees in Architecture and Urban Planning at the Universidade Federal da Bahia. TANTO’s projects include installations and sculptural objects, designed spaces for creative action, and graphic design, often in collaboration with other artists, publishers and organizers. Edra Soto is a multidisciplinary artist, educator and curator born in Puerto Rico and based in Chicago. She works between social practice, immersive installations and architectural interventions, employing materials and practices from post-colonial visual cultures to address issues of colonization, cultural identity, and relationships between communities. Edra Soto is also co-director of the outdoor project space THE FRANKLIN, in her backyard in Garfield Park. Daniel Sabóia and Patricia Almeida, from TANTO, and Edra Soto are part of “Close to There Perto de Lá”, an artist exchange program between Salvador, Brazil and Chicago organized by Comfort Station …