On the occasion of the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia and on the eve of the Brussels Pride, the two artists Daniel Nicolaevsky Maria and Lieven De Boeck will talk about their socially engaged practice and performance as an affirmation of political commitment incorporating revolt and poetry.
your instagr your YouTube e e thank you to everyone for being here thank you so much to Frederick to Clan s to Sasha to bio for organizing this event um just a quick word to tell you the program so we’re first going to see two videos each video is uh little part of the performance of each artist then they will both read the text and then we will have a conversation all together if the B Point Works Sasha can you me see on the computer yes it’s beautiful s you can take a time to observe [Music] everything each still we are both in the fiction in between why empty and reaching the mag themselves grow and so does the space in [Music] between yes I think of my arst I just organized the materials we gave this past Saturday I was also looking at your business card of course when I read my book I see the page that has I want to drop your to the floor when is the again my trip hope all is well it sounds like [Music] I’m pass I don’t think I personally can make to kind commitment that the continuation conques as interesting as it sounds I’m now at a place in my life where I’m interested to be more responsible I’m enjoying the freedom and privilege I’ve earned over many [Music] years I from I for I felt like three blue stars street light K tree felt a c dark I felt compressed energized sparkling I wish I didn’t love you so much I need you so much right now I feel so depressed this guy broke up with me he did it by email without any explanation can you believe it St do you still have plans for coming please let me know [Music] [Music] keyboards that’s IDE fore fore so many do [Music] for near [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh one more [Music] oh [Music] [Music] here no I here first and okay yeah because here’s more lights um I will read a letter which I’ve read which I’ve written two years ago to uh the committee of my PhD and which uh contains a little bit the questions this PhD is dealing with and uh which also has been a kind of provocative uh moment because you’re not allowed to ask questions to the committee in a PhD situation so if I read not loud enough you just shout and then I try to speak louder but I do my best when working on my PhD I realized the personal and emotional charge of the title of this PhD the archive of disappearance the title already existed before starting this PhD it has been the working title guiding my artistic practice since 2009 it is only now almost 15 years later that I fully started to understand what this title really signifies the process of four years of Discovery and experimentation of Concepts and ideas of other artists and theorists have been like a coming home it feels like I get to understand the pressure and stress but also the creativity that have guided my life and artistic practice so far it is like I can finally understand the restrictions of appearance I projected on myself to fit in society but also understand how this has been a condition for the creative production and journey I undertook so far disappearance has been my motto as a queer person since at least from when I was 7 years old from that age I returned to my parental home and was fully back in in the hands of my parents and grandparents from that age I had to make of this appearance my daily practice to keep up with existence to hide me as much as possible and create situations where I could be myself my dressing up as a girl or acting in a feminine way was less and less accepted and instead became more and more corrected so I invented playback performances presented the dressing up as a girl being a boy as something to laugh with to create spectacle and amusement that worked for some time also with my school friends but growing up means to get more and more indoctrinated to fulfill your role in neoliberal and heteronormative Society critical reading of that Society or otherness is only allowed under strict circumstances like in comedy shows or in fairy tales are the spectacle and more recently in strict territories like lgbtq plus friendly places otherwise critical reading or otherness is tolerated when an emphasis is put on its ridiculous or unrealistic character or in temporal festive situations Carnival is a historic form of a temporal critical view on society that allows other behaviors queer behavior is allowed during a yearly event The Pride Carnival and the pride are authorized for a few days a year after that queerness disappears again in its usual strict territories AR is since a few years accepted when it inscribes itself in the heteronormative framework marriage adopt children in other words play the normal e life in many aspect in many respects this seems also true for art can art be a place that allows queerness and a critical question of the heteronormative neoliberal society we live in in the research of the Remake when attitude becomes form although I started from a very positive outlook I became convinced that the conceptual artworks are not so dangerous in questioning the art system and our our society as they often are presented to do so and if some Works did take a strong position that position was gradually undermined through the institutional recuperation ation of the value of the artwork as an object because the remake of an attitude becomes form in 2013 happened by means of an archaeological approach I became increasingly unsettled by the affirmation of this non-critical position that fits so well in our White heteronormative Society in the original exhibition in 1969 there was a very low number of women and color people were absent the the topics of equal gender representation and the inclusion of colored people were maybe less present in society at the time of the original exhibition but the fact that these questions were not properly addressed during its historical recuperation turns its remake in a confirmation that it is not necessary to account for these questions about an equal gender representation and exclusion of G of colored people however this remake exhibition is happening in our society 43 years later and so now here this and this makes the non-critical archaeological remake difficult to accept this non-critical the non-critical rep recuperation is also present on another level the artists shown in when atud becomes form have been strongly suggested to Zan by some influential gallerists and can be seen as a marketing operation promoting the artists of these galleries this Art Market Value related approach that itself was questioned in the artistic practice of different artists included in the show is as such already Rand harmless for me that the original show is sponsored by a secret brand and its remake by a high-end fashion brand is also an affirmation of its neol liberal recuperation this poses me for the second question are conceptual artworks able to criticize the way in which emotions are politically controlled World in a heteronormative neoliberal society as a child I was not allowed to cry my father would get furious when I did for years I could not cry anymore crying is seen as socially discomforting irrational behavior and vulnerability you should not expose to other people because that undermines your credibility as a rational being crying does not resolve the reasons for your sadness or pain you should better go to action and thinking on how to solve the problem it is an irrational act that has no place in the public sphere but crying is a personal or empathic experience everyone who can really cry knows that this is a Corporal reaction that is very necessary it does make it does not make your sadness disappear or is not meant to make it visible to receive pity but it lets you experience it the Remake and activation of the copy of the original copy of 21 of thought me that the experiential can be present in the artwork and still can transport a message the Remake and activation made me experience a feeling the artist here heloa knows I asked myself if this emotional charge allows art to become political and critical OA which is parang gave a place and time where the people are not part of normal society and are hidden in the favelas because they are poor colored or different can be themselves and can experience Freedom heloa cses experience cre Leisure Time a time of creation and Leisure I wonder if Helo wanted to make this hidden people from noas appearing in public space and if his being queer made him understand the exclusion he experienced and the territory they needed through his work of the pangis elot took a strong political and critical position of a feeling he knew as a queer person the Remake and reactivation of a copy of hela’s work I undertook asks many questions towards Concepts generally taken for granted or defended in the art world like authorship or cultural appropriation I believe that as a queer person I I appropriate this work in a queer way that is allowing a precise contextualization that makes the thinking and the work of Helo from temporary in respect with his work and the person this in a queer way positions itself opposite of the exhibition copies that have been produced over time these were made with the intention to preserve The Originals which turn them into high value commercial artworks and to be activated only by The Visitor of the museum according to me one cannot appropriate here work in a more wrong way but what does it mean then in a queer way when I was 25 years old I started to cruise in parks and other public spaces this activity took sometimes a lot of my time the pleasure to prepare to go somewhere to think on what to bring with you to put yourself in the right moods the pleasure to discover that in any City there was always a playground to be found sometimes the experience was great sometimes just what was needed and sometimes disappointing and dangerous these activities took often place in the dark hidden from the public eye only the one who has experience could find out what was happening cruising includes desire trust uncertainty loss memory and dare to lose yourself in an unknown place for Jean luk N queer temporality of the activity of cruising means not historical looking backwards are an infinite progress to towards some utopian future and not exactly no future either but the Jance of the present this temporality has a radical potential of contempor in it cruising inhabits a kind of sexuality that is about seeking fleeting pleasure allowing for bodily expression to function as free from commitment usually anonymously and without exchanging names often inan public indoor spaces or Outdoors Crossing spaces can be spaces of exploration and empathy right for artistic study the Remake and activation of the original of the copy of the original copy Capa 21 in a clear way is exactly this not a historical looking backwards but a Jey sounds of the present where the participants can explore the work and understand it through empathy empathy it is about fleing allowing bily expression and it is free from commitment so just to contextualize um this text was born um um last year um I always tend to write my projects either to partition if it’s dance piece or thoughts ideas behind my fin art uh works like paintings and drwing so this work was born to be behind the installation just to give an idea of context it’s called writings under the bed Mother Earth is a gap in for the year of coffee sugar cane and cotton plantations we began devouring The Riches of our planet like insatiable parasites transatlantically parasiting our brothers and sisters with chains and Huffs planting endless FS to feed the masses in exchange for the plundering of fertile lands living behind an N invested landscape constantly raised forests poisoned rivers and the Indian Ocean turned into a garbage dump the price of our vacity is the destruction of our common home no more sand no more Forest no more butterflies or Primal forests America and the Caribbean have become the imagined projection of the European mind but the new world comes from the destruction of the old the plundering of the earth breeds successive diseases and the loss of Natural Resources rivers and seeds die every day in name of the legitimacy of the power in the regim the cage has be the world and the world the void so we find ourselves trapped between these true temporal layers one past and one future insidiously trapped in a well-known Arch not yet rooted in the present moment we only see through a narrow fet in the Horizon of future to rebuild intellect spaces and even Spirits are not political Affairs and properties of destructive States bodies and souls trapped in a word impos upon them by the paranoia of the former power from its loss of legitimacy once again from loss of strength the weight of the new lens created from the ruins of the old world Waits upon us let us hatch a new world complete and whole no longer fragmented no longer half life colored understanding the importance of every human and nonhuman species visible and invisible to bring out of its ental the keys for leg legate power home for all living things but are we capable of overcoming the anthropological pessimism that drives us to our Collective appey how can we not submit to the contamination of the ongoing destruction and gain the upper hand of our over our minds and imaginations turning to the power of the common of Rest In Dreams to create together our home would you not be simply human to overcome difficulties and reinvent ourselves from our inner emptiness having not all survived here the pandemic of the century capables of wandering to this leit the real future of the world we want to build seems Clos Prophet through the idilic exilation of the global South with its religious promise of a fictional Eden has deliberately excluded and oppressed indigenous groups through State mechanism that have benefited Regal and Atlantic Colonial Powers illegally sold wood from Guana and Brazil has the ironic Destiny of creating parket flors fors in North America and F the rade industry in Europe transforming forests into garden furniture and bedding accessories if modern constructions have the power to build time does the origin of Natural Resources VI Mansions or coffins the destruction of this categorical symbols of our society reveals the fragmented and fragile nature of the Visions held by nation states and institutional institutionalized religions sorry but are we what are we really building we are trying to move forwards together towards the creation of an ecological society and this reality overwhelms us however our preconceived and closed ideas will not allow political progress we must avoid building a lifeless Society but why are we walking in that direction how can we avoid the destruction of cultures our origins of course are Beyond of our control yet we possess the power to determine our future course we need to restablish our roles our caretakers of our Atlas embracing together the unic imagination while reconnecting with the past whose future have been cut off at some point in our history using the forms of collective reflection and mind Earth Systems that we cultivated long ago to build our own teror form listening to The Whispers of our Niche and honoring its rhms its Cycles understand that we are in the same cycle as an open ey butterfly settling on other Roots soing life to progress towards this transformation cycle thank you very much to both of you uh for this text there’s actually so many links we can do between the two of your practice um if we are having this talk today is because of course you are part of the show created by by us Bell um a private Affair and it’s the first topic I would like to to talk with you is the relationship between what’s private and what’s public in the sense that when we observe the relationship between these two notion we actually realize quite quickly that it’s very blurry where does the public begin where does the private end it’s actually difficult to to know exactly what’s the limit between the inside the outside the intimate experience the public experience for example when we are when are we in a private context and when when are we in a public context when we are in bed with someone we don’t know are we in a public or private context when we welcome stranger into our own home is it private or is it now public when we welcome new ideas into our mind is our own mind still really private as you know today is also um the 17th of May which is the International Day against homophobia transphobia and bifobia which in my opinion makes the makes this topic even more important because as uh Liv already a bit said in his work in a het normative Society career bodies are discriminated and and actually made invisible from public space so I wanted that was my first question for both of you um we start strong now with the big topic I wanted to know in your opinion for you when does the private happen when does the public uh happen and when the public life is invaded by this heteronormative violence is the private space something we have to protect and how do we do it how do we protect our private space from the het normative violence um yesterday when we met for the first time uh even you explained to me something that I found very interesting you said to me that a house or even more precisely maybe a home can only be one person and as soon as we’re two people it’s already a a public space and now that you gave me this idea I wanted to ask Daniel if you agree with this this idea um I kind of agree uh with this idea because it’s it’s a performative idea to def definition of yourself and how do you decide to present or to reject the reading of the other upon yourself right so this is how we shape our relationship to to life actually so I don’t live by myself I live my partner but I’m also a autist and from an arst perspective yes of course there’s always this idea of showing and not showing and when something is ready to be shown when something is ready to be presented to the other even the closest persons there are around you because that’s also a performative aspect of allowing yourself to be who you ready to be for society um and then the whole aspect of the gain of the heror normative and and the possibility of creating yourself upon or not these constraints um I see that as an strength for Nares to be able to create our own Society upon the flag of the queerness so we are C bodies we are C people and our possibility to cry as kid growing up because I of society Rel matches Prive IDE of who we have to perform in order to be accepted by Society defines also for me personally how I deal with my work in my creation it talk about vulnerability and this piece uh I can see the photos coming here um it’s all about vulnerability about being true to myself being true to the public and being true to the person that I invite to save myself from these constraints that can be read as constraint put by societies put by the relationships that you develop with others that stuck you into a space into a country into a house but it’s also sometimes liberating but creating this trust with the space with with the surround it’s very hard if we can maybe see uh the pictures before of the performal so yeah we can see yeah that’s the start and then it becomes more and more intense know it it grows and then we see you with cords around your neck which is quite violent to to witness now and it seems very intense for you as well obviously and then at the end there’s the arrival of the singer and that’s maybe I don’t know maybe you have to correct me but when you are in the most V vulnerable position and yes it is it is I’m very vulnerable it’s a very it’s physically intense it’s physically demanding um it wasn’t easy to create this piece um but had a chance to have the team and the setting of Frederick’s apartment that HED the the structure the installation that we did um but funny funny thing just for question wise uh when I started the research for doing this this piece um for its Premier in Paris four years ago uh I had to fall for 4 days constantly I had to go to the space because it was the first time I had been created it yet in order to create the right gesture and the right position and the right idea and how we would create this very strong image of having this black body suspend in white space I had to keep falling constantly from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. every day in order to cre this momentum so it’s the vulnerability um the loneliness the engagement of with the work as well that allows this the strength to to AR I find that per if I interesting I mean I mean U I don’t know if I I can ask you that question but if you for example in that moment uh do you feel as um um I mean if you talk again about the idea of private and public is that for you a private moment or a public moment it’s um it’s a private public that’s why I wanted to it’s not a public private it’s a private public I yeah because I think in a way it’s creating a time and a space your own time and space in a time and space which is surrounding that action and um or at least that’s uh that’s how I often look at the performance that it’s it’s a little bit like U when you play as a child that um you make your own time and space which is different than the time in the space around you uh but which is of course in relation and there are you know that people are looking and that it’s it’s some PR in the sense that you are disconnected from Everything feels like an Open studio [Music] Som it’s like this is like entering my mind entering like the madness that is here that I’m able to put as a as a as a thing actually it’s a it’s not it’s a project it’s a performance it’s um it’s yeah but I like the idea I haven’t thought about that like this hopan yeah like this heterotopian concept of like how can the work like dilates time and space and create a new layer and doing like my performance studies at my master I was for you playing as the not like the trickster but um know what I mean like this performative body that ENT spaces just like to to tease up others in order to create confusion or something like the the performer is a role of the trick trickster yeah but I think that’s also I believe that’s also one of the aspect of performance it’s a performance so you play also what you think the other people project on You by doing them this maybe uh bit related to the performance I will do next today which is which you saw a test uh a test uh a test setting it’s totally not meant to be final but um basically there um you will have this text uh which will be spoken which U are letters um which are addressed to myself by other people and uh the idea is that through these letters you make exactly this projection but of course the letters are ch it’s not that um it’s not how to say um so the it’s a little bit where I want with the private yeah yeah and always is always working that border between what you want to show and I think that’s the our advantage as artists because we we we have to enable ourselves to feel the worst feels ever that Humanity can feel actually in order to be able to play with that so yeah I wanted to make a very visual work with this so I had to go very deep into my mind but the being a l is also a tool to be able to escape your from there I think and it feels like there’s this Evolution as well in the performance because when the singer arrives she’s singing and she’s turning around you and it seems a bit like a trat because you’re physically underneath her and she’s looking at you from above she’s the one having a voice because she’s seeing and then it’s very beautiful because at the end I think it’s the following slides yes it seems like she’s now helping you and so is there an evolution yes the pie was WR like this it was there are many readings possible um the role of the as you have you said in your P research like the black body the qu body being allow or not in most specific Elite spaces like galleries museums which kind of public spaces can be accessed or not for certain kind of public or not uh but also I wanted to dramatically create a scenario where trust uh or this motherly this lovely character will come to detach me from the character from this this prison and coming back to the question of public and private if we can go to the slide 16 which is this one yes we’re going to do mathematics lesson no no I don’t know the formula to this shape but I thought it was very interesting that LE used it in his work because there is actually a shape that for me is the perfect illustration of something that is both interior and exterior and we could never Define when is it exterior and when is it interior because the mov ring is basically this shape that you have to imagine as a band that is Twisted um so when you follow for example on this one if we follow the black line with our finger when we’re inside and then outside and inside and then outside and in whatever sense we take that shape we can never know like okay I’m now in the exterior I’m now in the inside and that’s the shape you used for the series seven gender flag which is two slides um before and maybe even you can explain a bit the process of creating this uh yes so uh basically um yeah to say true it’s a long story so I have to keep it short but uh basically through uh through the work of uh I and this was very nice that you immediately also recognized it a little bit in this installation um was uh that I was I’m doing some Works in relation to the representation of queer identity and um uh so they there there’s there are existing um uh representations or descriptions of different quer or gender identities which often are represented by um a flag uh like the rainbow flag which are stripes and then uh in different colors and every color has a meaning um and for me this kind of uh representation uh through this kind of language is a little bit heart and also very much related to what I consider as being national identity because many national flags have this kind of stripes and um I think national identity is one of the worst Concepts which exist uh which is also only invented in the 19th century while everybody thinks it’s for it has been there forever and so I was looking for how can I what can I do with these Flags uh to represent idea of identity of queerness and gender in a different way and so I arrived just by basically if I explain very simple I cuted up the flags and then I uh took the different color stripes and turned them in this endless loop the M strip and then I um weave them through each stti them through each other so that even uh if I have the same colors or the same representation of the same flag just by putting the the M different through each other it becomes a different form and so I thought it was a little bit more U accurate or for me more close to what’s this identity which often is rather fluid identity should or could how it could be represented uh but I arrived also a little bit with the m Strip by leot because leot wrote this book The Liberal Liberal economy which is a very contested book by philosophers because it’s more fiction than really based on a real philosophic philosophical Bas and in his uh in his book The figure which represents desire is uh the muus and um one of the interesting things for me also on the muus is that you can become the shadow of your yourself because if you put your finger like here and then name take the second finger and you do the M you arriv behind yourself that’s also it’s a kind of nice uh special uh that that that you and your Shadow exist it’s not only you who exist and I had a funny experience when I first saw this work and you told me I’m not the only one actually but if you see the the next slides were a bit closer the first time I saw it I was not very close to the work and I was sure it was leather and then he thought no no no it’s paper then it’s indeed paper colored paper but the fact that it seems like it’s leather it gives also a skin like aspect and maybe yes would you agree with that and then is the thread then like a a scar yeah it’s like a little it’s like a say stitched Stitch yes thank you I thought the same thing when I saw them first I thought it was no it’s a It’s Paper it’s a paper coming out of Italy which uh it was a long uh research on the right paper because uh I wanted to have it as light as possible and also as flexible as possible at the same time it should not Crack by its weight and yeah this this is what it became but and through this printing which is because in fact these colors are all coded so they all have their own color code it was important for me that this was correct and so um I found some printing company in G who could do this because it’s not so easy um to print on the both sides of the paper and and for me there’s another thing happening in this transformation from the rectangle flag to this Muse strip shape is that when you have have a flag of course the strips are all connected to each other there’s no blank there’s no void in the in the flag but by transforming it into that it’s like you insert void you insert possibility and you you insert emptiness in this and I thought it was quite interesting as well because if we see the next slide or even the next one yes that’s one of that work um and and I saw a connection between the two of you there because you both use this image of of a stripe and by seeing this uh fragmented image it’s like for me Daniel that you make the process of seeing an artwork very explicit in the sense that when uh someone is watching the image the mind has to complete the image no it’s it’s imagination yeah yeah definitely uh yeah it’s fun relation to the and what he said about void in the buiness for it to be a permission for just for being actually so you can Define yourself and create space for for for your self representation so this work um this him him and yeah so it started it’s a long process this work I’ve been painting bad Fram in Fr for best 10 years so I recovered these objects um either from the streets or from broks and I take them to the studio um and it started as a as a wish to transform this two photos so these are actual person that photograph in Rio de Janeiro um and associative days in orphanages that I used to frequent with my math teacher from high school so during the parties I was doing voluntary work as a photographer for the events for like Child’s Day and Christmas but I I didn’t want to this photos just to be photos actually so I started thinking of a way to to present them differently and also studying conceptual art and conceptual painting um and the suralis movement is of course the bonan movement in France and I took like these old photos and I started painting all these bad friends um because of the whole idea of the attachment Theory and from the relationship that us all human beings develop with our surroundings in order to form ourselves the idea of the self and and the possibility of not no competation of this image of ourselves if the society is not allowing us to to have this possibility later on for the series I added these two portraits the and the Wonder Woman uh there are portrait of uh activists in France and the in the US that suffer the loss of um person from the family so here you have that I contacted and agreed to have a portrait including in the series I don’t know if you know which is the leader of the black feminist um anti police brutality in France that lost her brother yes just actually yesterday we learned that no policeman that was involved in the murder of her brother was is going to be um punished actually he’s not he’s not he not we just Lear yesterday I think after I know 10 years of fight yes and she’s incredible it keeps happening in face and it’s a it’s a piece that started developing also like the no possibility of you creating a family or being with your loved ones just because the systematic problems um that we have to go through especially as a queer person as a black person as a person that was born I don’t the peripheries are different Val and this part this lady is Jenna Floyd which is the daugh of George Floyd mate black African men in the US um so yeah it’s a this of like how Society can cut us from who we are who can we can be who how it can be very traumatized to grow up like in society as a marginalized person and again there’s the subject of intimacy because the support is is not any support it’s a bad frame yeah it’s an old parents bad f is a place where you go to develop yourself to read stories what what what I would do when I went like to hide myself my best parents like to e like the Bible because I was I was raised in the evangelic church in Brazil then I had like this disconnection with religion but it’s also Al like this c space like this safe space and some people don’t have the privilege to have the same spes because of how societ is buil well earlier we I I said that it was uh the International Day against homophobia transphobia bobia tomorrow is the pride in Brussels and it’s a topic now because there is so many instrumentalization of the cre Community for neoliberal um Ambitions and um I wanted to ask what’s what’s your feeling about that and also um when we talk about counterculture today what does it mean to be does it still exist actually counterculture when counterculture is fashionable or becomes a Mercantile object is it still possible to be part of Counter Culture what does it mean for you it’s very difficult um uh subject because U um I mean I I discuss these things rather in emotional than in a rational way so I cannot always argument properly but I believe that our world I told you yesterday already has uh that we need a CER Revolution I think it’s I think it’s the only Revolution which can uh can uh if you want to to be ecological a sustainable uh and inclusive Society I think it’s the only Revolution which is possible to obtain that I don’t think it can be situated in uh the society we live in actually and which sells sustainability e ecologic e ecology as a as a inclusivity as an economic product and not as something which is LIF uh but then again uh there is of course the question okay when if this would happen what is then the alternative because we always need uh we have what’s going on mainstream or what’s the let’s say the so can queerness be uh appropriated not or is it then not lost is it then the concept counts so because queerness in itself is it just be different but if the be different is the main uh there is no be different anymore so it’s different it’s different it’s faster and faster the how how Comm how takes like the struggles to fight I think it’s something that we have to fight against know refuse proposals as artist I mean I’m often solicited to to an exhibition or a collaboration um but you have to choose widely um who you work with and why you work with certain companies structures CU sometimes like the money is good but is it worth it do really want to like engage with this these people this structure um yeah it’s like faster and faster how anything will will be spotlighted on by television by the medas like I feel like Counter Culture is faster and faster appropriated by like but I like your text if I can call is at a certain moment when I was reading it uh at home I thought that there is a kind of um if you talk the way firstage no I think it’s uh when you start um yeah yeah so uh we need to reestablish our role as caretakers of our atas embracing together the own tic imagination where reconnecting with the past whose future will have been cut off at some point in our history but I think also related to things before I was uh also making kind of connection to this idea of animism or uh one of these uh maybe one of this ideas of public private and also queer or not queer um is related to the idea that if you start from an animistic approach where uh the this class has has many import my life that we as a human are not considering anymore as being the human the nature the animals and the plants and so on and so that this could be an interesting step in relation to real it’s a real approach um just to accept the like even the transition uh Earthly like the transition of life and post life and the past lives the past lives are in our own bodies the allowed us to evolve within ourselves organically as well and how we can how we have to deal with that as well um of course the relationship with animal with plants but also the and the cosmos but not there like here here like the transition when you when you stud and meditative practice that take us out of our bodies um I through self hypos or just your relationship with food and with time and how that can Sur passes our own Corporal experience and very found from that and I find I think that this is really important to connect our spirits to the not not connect the spirit to the body but to accept the body as a spirit itself like any it’s it’s a very comp complex question and I think it’s it’s a bit what you said related to the subject of the death of the self as well in the sense that contemporary FS of I’m thinking now about Jud Butler mainly really explain how individualism cannot be um the way we understand beings anymore no because we’ve seen that Consciousness is actually not so relevant and that we’re made of such a complexity of things that are Beyond ourselves um but I as the question I think also in queerness when if we consider the being as a fluid being and not an individual how then can we have this philosophical approach very deeply rooted but also we have to put forward problematics that are um relevant only for some individuals if you see what I mean like how to how to uh communicate the specificities of some experiences if the self is by definition fluid and and not the self anymore that’s question I don’t know I don’t know if I have an answer for that I think that building communities is important to counter individualistic approaches of fre um we talk about Counter Culture but counter systems counter cities counter um egoist approaches are way of building Collective mind thinking spaces and structures um when you when you when you look close to tribalistic factors and how like how a village can be connected without need of Facebook Instagram social media things that we invented you know to try to connect ourselves deeper but actually separated ourselves from what to be together um less private spaces maybe more public spes do you want to no I I have no real answer but I want I want to go back to one other sentence but one which I really liked is uh this one our Origins are beyond our control yet we possess the power to to determine our future course um um and what I personally find uh difficult is that um or a question for myself is that um um a little bit the quas I described in my in my letter is also a kind of safe place at the end you know it’s also some protection I need for myself and um I don’t want to give it up so I mean where is the limit where you allow uh public or private or also what you said about your that the your own Consciousness is maybe not so important but so yeah how do you deal it in daily life it’s something which I have no yeah so this phrase um I mean we all come in this room for different Origins right we live in a post post contemporary societ um I discovered myself having through this DNA um tested most of the populations are doing right now in order to discover where our this where the past lives that came before us in order for us to be here came um everyone has different ORS right um as a black person black queer person having been coming from Jewish um asess in from East European in Brazil and also from the late persons coming from Africa to Brazil I try to understand how complex humanity is because of this mixture right and I try not to put myself in this position of entitlement because of what uh those who came before me have come through um I tried to create something new um and I think I I understood a few years ago that it’s very hard to be like a pop star as a f artist like the career is a lifetime career so losing this hurry of being who Society is expecting us to be uh is a really great um and this is how try to play my my future course trying to do something during my living that is important maybe not even for the living pres of my time but maybe put something for what’s to come which I hope it’s better what was reading I don’t know what for me no no it’s I think it’s an important sentence because [Music] um I think it’s something which also comes often back in uh in debates um yeah I don’t I don’t I don’t think I I want to start he talks to me about rights and how the past Generations were able to fight for the rights and my existence right right now is made because these people had POS so approaching art as to a scientific approach as well in how Society of all this I mean like studies right studies and research and how we can how can we lay upon the the past you know to continue creating better things actually so like building communities building strong communities uh strong Minds there are always constantly conly reflecting on the idea of what we want to create but not only for ourselves for the big self that we all are thank you very much to both of you thank you maybe we can uh open the floor also to the public I don’t know if anyone has a question or a reflection I have a question an answer so it’s it’s mostly for it’s it’s also the question for for even that that’s that came because Janu the whole purpose of this day against homophobia and all this and this and you mentioned that that’s part of your work was to to get out of heteronormativity and you say that that you’re talking about the body but isn’t it a bit uh strange and I ask you to to go deeply in as honest an answer as possible that you you are both performing with women and uh is it an easy answer would be that it is because of inclusivity but isn’t it more because of heteronormativity because you uh you are still kind of bound by this uh by this structure that uh that that that it is easier to to to show to the public something between a man and a woman and U and were you were you afraid of that that that you might uh shock be less uh appealing to to to the audience to uh to do a performance with the uh with with men um uh there are several readings from the relationship of these two characters and the performance um I see not a heter narative uh constraint to the work for more like somehow parental modeling relationship a mod relationship so so so more the relationship of this person that we go for if you had the possibility to have some comfort and to talk of our struggles and constraints and the first time I did uh with my in Paris at the ANP Gallery when I was going to do the award for the exhibition um I I asked her uh I remember sending her a WhatsApp message asking her to save myself from a prison that I was going to create for myself that was like the pitch um because she we were really close we were at the dance group together um she was singing and the pharmony in par and I really like her voice I tried for this because it’s part of the work to find a local singer local performer to engage with the community but also to just discover new artist and for this presentation here I I was working with a black queer person male performer but the way that he connected with his music didn’t connect it with how I want the music to be interpreted on my pce um but I knew that I wanted uh and this something that I working on to work more with black artists in my work so the first two singers that I had um they more white white passings on my this is white occasion and EV is like nexted um which was singing in Portuguese on the video beginning of the tong and now I wanted uh I chose Emmanuel because of the her voice of course how she can put herself and I don’t know if that’s specific to the male voice to the female voice definitely I know uh but the pitch really works so when I first heard her singing I was like yeah that that’s good that’s her um but trust I don’t think the trust um is grii because this trust that we create on the end um can be done with men female nonbinary trans have lot of trans friends and I trust them but they don’t have the same voice just for aesthetic an artistic what about you even though we have not seen the the performance but the uh these letters that are that have the the letters that will be read by by wom classic I mean for me it’s always um I never work with professional performers so it’s always people I meet by coincidence and uh so may who will read the letters uh is a ex colleague of me who is in transition to from men to women um and uh it was a very difficult uh how to say it’s a difficult process and for me I proposed her to give this form to her and she took it as something which she has to do for herself in order to to also be able to become I don’t know how to say and um and the other persons you saw uh one is my is is an ex student of me both ex students of me at La who I talk to at noon and then they want to do it and it’s it’s never really thought about if they are women or men but the the letter that that are read who the letters are written who send them so the original uh the original um how to say the original question was that I asked uh friends of mine men and women uh what they thought I was thinking the first time I met them uh but uh nobody remembered or nobody was uh how to say uh there to to tell me what I don’t know but I got I got kind of letters which I thought it’s not true it’s kind of fake and then when I talked to them with about it it was clear that nobody or did not remember or made a story up because they thought they had to make a story up and um so then I gave up that uh that idea and um now it’s a mix it’s kind of two during two years I collected just when I was reading a book uh fragment or um some of some are emails two of them which were which were hearing this test for the performance are really were really emails written to me but it’s a mix of men but I tried to play with um I mean that’s a little bit to the first uh how the conversation started but uh for me a public space starts from the moment that there is the conscious of the other so uh this is what I found in a letter something or an email we call it now a letter but um it’s something which is constructed there because I write the email or the email is written to me from a certain person and it’s communication between that person and myself but by presenting the letter or reading the letter in public there is somebody else as well so um and this person is going to construct an image of who is writing the letter and who and who is this Le they are talking about and um in this I mean totally are 366 letters we will not read 366 letters uh but they the they play all the things you can do with language in order to to play um to perform yourself so it’s um some of the letters and so maybe the one of first of January is continued uh in a conversation in the third of April and so it just continues the the idea which was put in the first letter but in other uh they contradict themselves they some of the letters is about seduction other is about lying so all the things you can do with language in order to to construct an image of your personality into it but so yeah it’s it’s a mix of different did you see an evolution in the way wrting between the number one and the number 366 well I mean uh I said it’s a kind of collection during two years and then I tried to make an order but um it’s not that uh um I mean I cheated of course because otherwise there would be periods of boredom and um it’s I mean it’s it’s just it’s a feeling you I can read them in four hours and 15 minutes but but it’s because I almost I mean in my heart but is there another question remark I have another one so as it is the uh I remember that when we chose the the day of the event yes we we chose this against so you are a artist who are somehow playing with on that that on that is there some advice that you would like to give some remarks some some prayers something that You’ like to uh to tell to a to a young to a younger artist to someone on this on this day on on how you feel that that art could U could help could be could be the appropriate vehicle for this for transformation you said that that Jean said that that she was seeing a lot of of these appropriation of this uh of this uh of these different uh Trends is there a is there a a better way to uh to u to do it and what would be this this better way of doing itd uh well I mean for me I think that uh what I I I mean but this is in the through the through the PHD a little bit I propose queerness as a model that allows art to be because um I think it’s uh as it’s a little bit what I maybe U um I think the the the how to say the encounter with an artwork is very much uh um I don’t know if I can say it really in a few but um I think this this idea of um of uh queer time and space is and what what I conclude my text with is that um that um this is a way that could be a kind of uh encounter where uh uh there is more uh where the the equ equality of people being whatever they are uh could Happ and um I don’t know if I explain myself clear but I will try to reformulate it um and so I’m a little bit um asking myself um like IND belgum in our in my Society or our society uh we have now these rights it’s also what I refer to in my text that we can marry and we can adopt children but I mean the marriage itself is not questioned and I wonder if um as a CER Community we should not more insist in that it’s not only about new we that have to uh adapt and take this heteronormative framework and okay we can do that but the the the now I speak the the the concept of the marriage itself is not questions and this this concept is something which is uh has a history and then we are back in in your text it comes from uh legal and many other uh Traditions which have formed this institute it’s a tool for capitalism and it’s a tool of capitalism it’s also a tool of [Music] uh power power relations and so I mean is it not our uh task or I don’t know uh that we also propose different different uh that we question that effect we should not stop with accepting that uh this these models are put onto us we have to keep questioning these models I think this is a little bit what is my concern today do want to I totally agree with you yeah um I think it’s what I understand uh taking taking control of things things there are institutionalized um that marriage the gender situation that we were raised on and religion as well as spirituality and how I found myself um in this Arch Church somehow how because I was I was RA as I said in an evangelic Church in Brazil every Sunday the culture was to to go to the Dominic Church to read the stories the tellings the rights um but how uh closed like Many religious are so I didn’t connected with that so I went to museums to start understanding the world and the museums the Palaces this palaces of culture and also understanding the whole thing about the market and how I could transform that my living and and devote myself as we devote ourselves to our religious beliefs but in a more inclusive way um but again being an artist today we have to fight again the institutionalization of these palaces because these are safe spaces for us I go to this places in order to feel myself to to understand the word from a perspective perspective where I can move I can I can see images I can learn differently as a hyperactive person as well so not being in the structure like the school structure of sitting down reading and the books and taking the notes like learning in a Corporal way as well um so yeah definitely art is the perfect spot for prer persons I think because it’s the way it’s the place where we can reinvent ourselves we can perform we can drag we can s we can I think K is about performing also and I think that uh I mean I saw my task in this PhD which I don’t have yet but also in uh uh little bit uh putting a mirror in front of the academic world because uh performing is not allowed in an academic world and that’s fighting the institution right like what is bull what is like the between the Arts right and so this is why I also insisted in this model of the PHD which I proposed is U is uh is to transfer knowledge by making by doing by performing and not by uh uh how to say right about it I mean like thinking yes but it’s easy it’s not easy yeah thinking differently as well uh I have this process in my oneor I start I work very intuitively so sometimes I don’t I’m in the studio because I need to be in the studio I desire to be in the studio and I don’t know what I’m going to do but I know that I’m going to do something and through the making there’s the appearance and the appearance the concept and the writing I it’s a little bit twisted like yeah I mean for me it’s also like that you you start very intuitive and then becomes the meaning of it becomes also by many also by Studio visit people are just or this talk by meeting you I mean is everything is connected and what is maybe I did this afterno in the studio gets different sense and another sense or Mak sense just because of see there was another question have two questions um thank you both very much for the very inspiring talk raised a lot of questions um and so um I’m thinking a lot about what you said about when attitudes become form and and the implicit U heteronormativity within that I don’t recall if Gilton George was in that show or not they were not they were not yeah um and they were added in the in the London in the London version okay so and so the the question that I posed to myself the language of conceptual and minimalist art is it a simp is it symptomatic of a eurocentric absolutely heteronormative Society absolutely and so now I go back to the question of the exclusion of people of color or or quer from that exhibition and which artists would you have put if you can go back to 1969 who would you add to that wait wait wait now getting excited and then and and then of course and of course you’re going say CH is that how you said how you say Portuguese or English pronunciation now now now of course you going add him and and Brazilian modernist who I think are absolutely brilliant and very inspiring so my question to you as a Brazilian artist is to go back to oswal Andro and anthropic Manifesto um which inspired the the the whole Tropicalia movement and in terms of heteronormativity would one in terms of queerness and the queer Revolution or the idea of of rethinking our concepts of all would the cannibal Manifesto be something that is counter heteronormative um and could it be considered as a as a a Manifesto or or or an ed towards a queer reading of anthropophaga um uh yeah there were many many things I think uh I mean to uh so the answer uh to the first thing that it’s North American European event absolutely um uh people I mean the list of people I would add was maybe endless but uh I I I mean uh uh I think it’s uh basically uh the the the only five women also who were shown um and uh I think that uh basically the list was made by others it was not really made by zon zon just contacted all the people in you giving names I’m curious to know who was excluded yeah for example um well I mean the Neo Neo concrete artist from Brazil for sure uh but I guess I mean I I cannot answer this now but uh but I think uh even uh elord Kelly for example who is a career person was not in that exhibition and I don’t see any reason why he would not be I mean of course then there is also the limitation of space and whatever they will have had other reasons I mean but uh I mean if I go back to the American uh but the the manifesto uh for me I think it’s uh it’s there a little bit uh one of the the lines which I tried to put out on on this PhD could be very contemporary could be something which we need now uh because I think it’s uh it defines the time differently for example so it’s um it’s it talks also it defines the object different the art object I think that uh uh so the the idea of the trans object even the word trans is already in it but the fact that uh the object only uh exists not only through the Creator but also by the receiver or the ones who the one manipulating it uh is things which today I think makes sense also in the idea of Queer as being a performative practice and not not necessarily the so the answer is yes you consider anetic manif as a kind of a queer yeah I do yeah and I agree with you because when you think about this movement and the whole idea of the cannibalism from s um Global s perspective it is about eating and destroying what they trying to put to make us become which is actually destroying their own world actually so it is it is a queer because um I’m Eng are queer actually there’re multiple genders uh you can transend gender trans people exist for centuries actually in Brazil in indigenous cultures and it is trying to it is a fight against eurocentric P perspective um and yeah this whole idea of the performative of leis Clark of like their objects like they were they were very avangard in Brazil uh even like faster than some movements in Europe in North America but but because they were in the global sou they were excluded from art history that’s why in Brazil we don’t we don’t use only art history we see the art the Arts histories as plural because there are several histories and I have to dialogue with those history as well so we try to do today in Brazilian studies to really when when we talk about art history European history uh even like contemporary Asian art history North American art history and to understand the connections between all of those and what was being done here sometimes because all the mixture and the ideas the Mi of the country these ideas was were their way faster than here thank you very much just open