Porto Summer School on Art & Cinema 2022

Brazil — Cross Dynamics of Otherness

There is a sense of historical impotence when one is confronted with the events perpetrated by the Brazilian government in recent years. One of the most significant results of this line of action is a scorched earth policy with regard to dialectical trajectories. To subtract or deny the possibilities of dynamism brought about by such trajectories means to forbid the transitions, the transgressions and the transversality that they imply, thus lacerating the teeming fabric that constitutes Brazil and South America.

Following Zalamea's reflections on South America, the concepts of intertwining and pendular movements become key instruments to navigate the complexities brought about by Brazilian cultures in recent decades. Both internally and externally, their results seem to thrive on bipolar trajectories. Magic and science become magic-as-science and science-as-magic; local and universal become local-universal and universal-local. Such maneuvers are easily observable in the expanding scale of a single condominium in Kleber Mendonça Filho's Aquário, or in the sinusoid epistemological games of Ana Vaz's Apiyemiyekî? They are both confirmations of Brazil as a crucial platform in the production, maintenance, construction, and estimation of the results of such pendular movements. These movements have also allowed Portuguese artists to immerse themselves in the political and historical upheavals of Brazil's geography. In this sense, both Susana de Sousa Dias' research on Fordlândia and João Salaviza / Renée Nader Messora's life project in the Krahô community testify to the need to understand other alterities and negotiate very different worldviews.

At this year's Porto Summer School, which takes place between July 4 and 8, participants will be immersed in these discussions, attending daily workshops with these artists, who will be in Porto during the first week of July 2022. Between artistic practices, creative atmospheres and a historical and contemporary dive into the epistemologies of the south.

In addition, Summer School has an open call for workshops (see details here) proposed by artists who can address these pressing issues. We encourage proposals led by women, black people, indigenous peoples, and LGBTQIA+.

The Summer School is organized in partnership with Kebraku, a cultural association based in Portugal that promotes the diversity of Brazilian culture.

GUEST ARTISTS AND RESEARCHERS

• Ana Vaz
• João Salaviza + Renée Nader Messora
• Kaê Guajajara
• Kleber Mendonça Filho (a confirmar)
• Lilia Moritz Schwarcz
• Susana de Sousa Dias

Deadline for submissions: May 31, 2022

Proposals for workshops: May 15, 2022 (more information here)