Associação Cultural Videobrasil

As a first research incursion aimed at curatorial projects that will be presented in 2013, in May Solange Farkas visits the Dakar Biennale (Senegal), one of the most important artistic events of the African continent. At the time, counting on interlocutors as curators Elvira Dyangani Ose and Koyo Kouoh, Farkas initiates contacts to trace a route of immersion in the local scene, an artistic mapping that will be further developed in future stages.

The initiative can be described as a subversion of the meaning of European colonizing expeditions—rather than the imposition of an exogenous gaze, the traveller is impregnated by the local culture and articulates it in new contexts. It will be a series of trips that may happen as research residencies or else as occasional visits to significant art events, like the Dakar Biennale itself. This process of research immersion will integrate the 18th International Contemporary Art Festival SESC_Videobrasil, to be held in 2013, celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the event.

Side new: Videobrasil participation at the Lubumbashi Biennial

Lubumbashi, a major city in the Democratic Republic of Congo, also hosts an important artistic event—which, although still in its third edition, has already generated relevant initiatives, such as the research, exchange, and training platform Picha (image, in Swahili), an association responsible not only for the production of the biennial, but also for the conferences, exhibitions, and workshops that artistically address the reality of many countries in Africa. Under general curator Elvira Dyangani Ose, recently appointed curator of international art at the Tate Modern, the 2012 edition of the event will feature a curatorial segment consisting of a group of works from the Videobrasil Collection. The Lubumbashi Biennial takes place October 3 through 7, and the presence of Videobrasil delegates is also an opportunity for a new contact with the African production, with a view to the projects that the International Contemporary Art Festival SESC_Videobrasil might promote in 2013. More details will be publish here on September.