Associação Cultural Videobrasil

Outros navios, which you created for the 1st Pan-African Contemporary Art Exhibition (MAM-BA, 2005), is your first work on video. How did the transition to the moving image take place, in your career?

It is true that I started working with video from then on, but my interest in the moving image goes back a long time. I take photographs with cinema in mind. At the Pan-African exhibition, I felt comfortable to make that, and the conditions that were offered to me made the choice easier. 

In Dead Horse, you propose a reflection about photograph and cinema, using Muybridge’s series as a starting point, and then transposing that proposal to contemporary blockbusters. How do you see the relation between photography and cinema in present days?

Dead Horse is a video made from a series of photos, which then gave origin to the moving image. Cinema renews itself, among other things, in the technologies, the narrative, and, of course, the photography, which brings along something totally new when everything seems depleted. That is, if you are talking about cinematography…Photography as an art that is parallel to cinema, in my opinion, is coming closer and closer to the cinema narrative—with regard to its editing style and the media that it uses. 

Your photographs are characterized, among other elements, by physical and chemical interventions. In what way has holding a degree in chemistry influenced your artistic creation?

I believe that my degree in chemistry doesn’t have much to do with it. My interest in experimentation, however, which led me to study chemistry in the first place, does. In everything that I produce there lies a restlessness that makes me want to break from the traditional model; I think that that holds true for all people who do creative work. 

Post No Bill was made in Nigeria, a country that has many ties to Brazil, particularly to the Brazilian black community. How did you come up with the idea for making the video, and which elements did Nigeria bring to the vast symbolic pool that comprises your work?

I have always worked with the concept of reorganizing chaos and information pileup. And in Nigeria, there is a sort of method amidst an apparent chaos, which turns the result of my work into a simple snapshot of the reality of that place. There is not much to be done, it is all done already. But most of all, the human element in its everyday life was what contributed the most to the result of my Post No Bill video. 

You have held several solo and group exhibitions in Africa. Has the fact of having been to the continent changed your view of the cultures, experiences, and realities of Brazilian black people, who you have always depicted in your works?

Not only in Africa, but also in the United States, for example, where I spent a season undertaking a residency in a black community, I found out that there is a very powerful link between Africa and the Diaspora, even in small gestures, anywhere in the world. I say this because on the birthday of the person who hosted me during my stay in that country, he received an early-morning phone call from his mother, who lives in Alabama. Before anything else, she sang him a song. My mother does that too on all of my birthdays.
Going back to your question, I believe that the Brazilian black community still has a lot of growing up to do in terms of their identity as blacks, as Brazilians, before it is able to put an end to inequalities that have persisted for I don’t know how long. 

The presence of your mother, both in the series of photographs in which she features and as a reference, stands out in your work. How have the family realm, your childhood in the state of Minas Gerais, and the reality of Brazilian blacks shaped the essence of your work?

My work is always permeated with memories, good and bad. I have learned a lot from my mother, I have learned to resist and to believe. Reality is something that you cannot escape. My work is a means of facing it. 

What projects are you working on right now?

The Dead Horse video has been awarded at the 2008-2009 Filme em Minas Audiovisual Incentive Program. It is a work in process and will be available to be viewed in its entirety by the end of the year. Right now, I am still working on the footage that I shot in Nigeria, in order to edit a second video. I have no name for it yet, and don’t know where I am going to screen it. 

Associação Cultural Videobrasil. "FF>>DOSSIER 045 Eustaquio Neves". Disponível em: >http://www.sescsp.org.br/sesc/videobrasil/site/dossier045/ensaio.asp>. São Paulo, julho de 2009.