Associação Cultural Videobrasil

Editor-in-chief of Caribbean publication ARC Magazine, writer and visual artist Holly Bynoe visited São Paulo in occasion of the 18th Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil. Her experiences in the city are reported in this article, which includes her considerations on the local contemporary art scene, as well as the relations between São Paulo and other representative cities around the world.

Read below an excerpt of the article, available in full on ARC Magazines website.

“(…) landing at Guarulhos International Airport could cause panic and ensue existential crises in the heart of any small island folk. Why was the futuristic graveyard of skyscrapers making my chest collapse/flutter? Was it that Gilliam’s ‘Sam Lowry’s Icarus’ somehow battered on my brain and I couldn’t help but descend into a surreal apocalyptic dreamscape? My love for cinema has capitalized on overtaking my brain when something powerful is being felt.  Or was it the fact that it immediately reduced my concept of first world centers like New York, Toronto and London to tiny blotches? Immediately I had to renegotiate my thoughts on utopic/dystopic futures as the massive expanse of the city rose under me, around me and then parallel to me before its verticalness dropped away.

Almost immediately a couple of things came to my mind.

Firstly, why do Caribbean people mostly travel to the North? It seemed that within seconds it was also recognizable as a metropolitan space, one which shares so much in common with the islands of the Caribbean – from its history of slavery and the resemblances within the context of indigeneity, agriculture, colonialism and religious practices – core values and realizations that are often amiss in America and Europe. There was also the matter of influence, and how our cultural uniqueness has been coopted by the United States and to a lesser extent Europe – another reason to consider other sites as equally important, and as having the potential to expose hidden dialogues.”