The kind of virtual that interests me is the one that merges timelines: the past as the virtual presence of ancestry, memory, trauma, while the future is the virtual presence of possibility. Dreaming, delusion, imagination, communicating with the dead — all of these are virtualities, where remote pasts and futures meet. My paintings, videos, digital works, urban projects — all of it has to do with this. Walking forward and backward at the same time is a way to dodge the traps of both accelerationism and reactionism.
My daily life revolves around a set of tasks: painting, writing, editing, designing. I try to deepen my relationship with these practices so they can guide me to their own way of speaking.
In this exhibition, I presented three urban design projects for specific locations: At the site of the Monumento às Bandeiras, I propose reviving the wetland that was once drained in the Ibirapuera area, so that the granite monster may gradually be swallowed, eroded, bogged down. Around Canudos, the project is an underground cinema that digests and screens constantly updated images of public fires mined from the internet. And inside the Maracanã stadium, I propose an annual bonfire to be held within its carcass.
I wanted these works to open a small crack into another world: a fleeting imaginative glimpse of the future, a ghostly resonance of the past.
There was also a group of paintings — an attempt to give form to a malaise. One that is not just mine, and not just negative. But what a strong malaise! These are group paintings, inhabited by mournful, raptured, outraged, joyful, disheartened, exposed, disgusted, aroused, confined, crumpled, companionable, affectionate, willing, euphoric, and reflective figures; in trance, alive and dead, realistic, imaginative, pragmatic, delirious, haunted, bewildered, eloquent, and in solidarity. There is eroticism, but not always; joy, death, but not always; care, affection, loneliness — everything is there. A diffuse pain, but also hope and pleasure.
Art is something you do together and alone, at the same time. The show included collaborations with artists I love, because they mess me up: with CLUBE, I created the benches for people to sit on; with Darks Miranda, the Maracanã and Ibirapuera videos were edited; with Raphaela Melsohn, painted ceramic sculptures as part of an ongoing collaboration; and with Rudá Babau, an audio guide.
