The brothers Paulo and Ricardo Miyada talk to the audience and present two videos – directed by Paulo with cinematography and editing by Ricardo - as the outcomes of the activation actions of the 18th Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil em São Carlos’ On Tour program.
In the video Mixtape: Videobrasil – made during the exhibition at Sesc Pompeia – the director opted for improvisation and for working with non-actors, prescribing only a handful of predetermined situations they should react to. On selecting the protagonists, he picked a couple who were regular art world attendees, the typical crowd of exhibitions, museums, galleries and biennials, in addition to the educators, who recount actual situations experienced in their work. Thus, the plot is structured between fiction and reality, and presented both as a documentary record about the audience’s relationship, and as a prop.
The short film Mixtape 2: Videobrasil features the children Ana Luiza Vellani Marino and Nicolas Pereira de Mori. In conversations provoked by Natália Pelizari and Raphaela Melsohn, the kids answer questions like ‘What is an artist?’ and ‘What is religion for?’ “This would be harder to do with adults, because they might find the questions aggressive and adopt a defensive stance...,” Paulo explains. The kids spontaneously address issues such as art, religion, belief and identity, contributing to critical reflection about the artworks, based on the confrontation of their perspectives and the audience’s reception.
Throughout the debate, Paulo Miyada explains his intention to attract attention to the moments that follow an exhibition’s opening, to what happens when it seems nothing is happening. According to him, curators, artists and producers impart much attention to production and little to reception, limiting their involvement up until the opening date. Generally, from then on they start thinking about the next show, as educators, security guards and box office clerks experience this second moment, when the audience starts visiting and building new meanings through the dialogues they establish with the artwork. “What do people bring into an exhibition? How do they re-elaborate the meaning of the artwork, as their sets of beliefs and ideologies intersect with the artistic intentions and attitudes at hand? To me, an exhibition is like a gift. Whenever I give someone a gift, I can receive something in return. I want to understand how we can receive the audience’s reciprocations,” says Miyada.
Paulo Miyada (São Paulo, Brazil, 1985) An architect and urban planner, he develops practical and theoretical work on the audio-visual representations of cities. In 2008 he shot the documentary film Tododia-feira (2008).
Ricardo Miyada (São Paulo, Brazil,1989) is holder of a degree in Audiovisual Communication at the School of Communication and Arts at Universidade de São Paulo. He is a director, photographer, screenwrtiter and writer.