"When the Southern Cross speaks" in South Africa
On February 25 and 26, Videobrasil Collection’s works are presented in THAT ART FAIR, in Cape Town, South Africa, a fair that will run from February 18 to March 06. Curated by Solange Farkas and Diego Matos, respectively Videobrasil’s director and archive coordinator, the film program When the Southern Cross speaks features eleven pieces that revisit history from the perspective of the artist’s place of speech. The exhibition is part of the THAT FILM FOCUS program, a film festival that takes place within the fair schedule, with one week in duration, carried out in collaboration with the International shnit ShortFilmFestival the Sunshine Cinema and Cultural Association Videobrasil.
The constellation that lends the program its title is easily seen and widely revered in the Southern hemisphere countries, but irrelevant in European culture. When the Southern Cross speaks pools together audiovisual productions from Latin America, Africa and the Arab World, outlying places that are invisible to Western hegemony and depart from its norm, although their local conditions are as similar as they are diverse. The exhibition is divided into two programs, featuring works by Akram Zaatari (Lebanon), Bakary Diallo (Mali), Bita Razavi (Iran), Enrique Ramírez (Chile), Gabriel Mascaro (Brazil), Gabriela Golder(Argentina), Nurit Sharett (Israel), Roberto Berliner (Brazil), Sebastian Diaz Morales (Argentina), Vincent Carelli (France/Brazil) and Virginia de Medeiros (Brazil).
In 1969, the Brazilian artist Cildo Meireles released a text that “fabulated about the possibility of reconquering a material and immaterial wealth that had been covered for centuries,” the curators say. The artist wrote: “Yes, I would like to speak of a region that is not on official maps, and which is called, for example, the Southern Cross. Its primitives never did split it up. But then others came and divided it for a purpose. Their division remains until this day.” Also in the 1970s, Brazilian audiovisual production flourished, with its portability, accessibility and reproducibility as prominent features of its democratic principle, in the face of the state of exception that was being experienced at that point in time. In the 1980s, as the military regime in Brazil came to an end, Videobrasil held the first edition of its Festival. Initially devoted to welcoming and promoting video at the national level, the Festival embraced productions from the global South over the years, in a bid to “make other speeches from distant cultural realities present,” as Solange and Diego put it.
When the Southern Cross speaks is divided into two programs: the first one, Intimacy is the fact, “takes into account affectual, intimate narratives, imparting importance to extra-official questions,” raised by their creators. This program features Les Feuilles d’un temps (2010), by Bakary Diallo; Crazy of You (1997), by Akram Zaatari; The Apocalyptic Mann (2002), by Sebastian Diaz Morales; A Pessoa é para o que nasce (1998), by Roberto Berliner; and Sergio e Simone (2010), by Virginia de Medeiros. In the second program, The exception is the rule, the story is told from the other’s perspective, even though the selected videos deconstruct traditional documental language. This program features Bosphorus: A Trilogy (2012), by Bita Razavi; H2 (2010), by Nurit Sharett; Brisas (2008), by Enrique Ramírez; O Espírito da TV (1990), by Vincent Carelli; and Cows (2002), by Gabriela Golder.
When the Southern Cross speaks complements the Biennial’s program, broadening the scope of reflection about the scenario put forth by the curator for this edition: “The artworks selected for the Biennial will celebrate subjectivities, actions, as well as individual and collective voices that infer a political gesture through poetics, ultimately rescuing these important narratives from the silence that had been imposed upon them,” Ose describes.
When the Southern Cross speaks
February 25 and 26, 2016, screening at 7pm and at 10pm
THAT ART FAIR
from February 18 to March 6, 2016
The Palms | 145 Sir Lowry Road in Woodstock, Cidade do Cabo, África do Sul
www.thatartfair.com