Gollnick, Brian - On Bandit Narratives (original) (raw)
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Favelas in Rio de Janeiro: New Approaches to a Singular Landscape
Proceedings of the 34th World Congress of Art History (Beijing, 2016), 2019
Favela is a Brazilian word for a sort of urban settlement spread around the world as slums, but it is also a ‘term’ for a particular landscape representation. For centuries, widely circulated visual images promoted Rio de Janeiro’s landscape as a monumental combination of city and nature. These narratives evoked feelings and attitudes towards Brazilian nature and attributed meanings and values to the city, as to those who headed political, economic, and environmental changes in the former capital of the country. The favelas that cropped up in the late 19th century became soon a social and an aesthetic problem to the so called “marvelous city”, connoting squalid, overcrowded, and chaotic urban squatters. The paper examines photographs and paintings that reinforced these labels along the 20th century, but also other cultural values that emerged from this complex reality. In recent years, as photography changed into an affordable practice for those who live in the favelas, digital photographers and visual artists are transforming their surroundings into new compositional challenges for viewing landscapes and other art works. Exploring technical and aesthetic possibilities, they are combining traditional references of landscape representation with their own explorations on the field, in order to create a personal framing for these urban imaginaries. TURAZZI, Maria Inez. Favelas in Rio de Janeiro: New Approaches to a Singular Landscape. In: 34th World Congress of ArtHistory, 2019, Pequim. Proceedings of the 34th World Congress of Art History. Pequim: The Commercial Press, 2019. v. 2. p. 1164-1170.
Culture, Temporary Uses and Unusual Spaces in Rio de Janeiro
Third International Conference of Young Urban Researchers, 2018
The city of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) has various socially and historically marginalized regions lacking cultural and leisure facilities. Within its context of immense social inequalities, many of its urban voids and formerly degraded areas have been planned in line with the global trend of spectacular architectural and urban projects in vogue since the 1980s. Like in the USA or Eastern Europe, these projects are concentrated in regions perceived as strategic to the real estate market and/or cultural tourism, disregarding the places where the demands and needs are latent, such as the favelas (local slums) and the peripheral lower-class neighborhoods. It is in these places, relegated by the public policies and the private capital, that we have observed new ways of thinking and occupying the urban space. We speak of improvised, often temporary actions that represent alternatives to the more formal enterprises that seek mainly the creation of salable urban images. These initiatives usually emerge from collectives of artists or associations of younger people seen as (sub)cultural groups, who carry on cultural interventions in the existing "gaps" of the public space – underneath viaducts, in hidden alleys, or even in abandoned/empty sites. Examples of these interventions are diverse: blind girdles or building walls turned into movie screens and open-air cinemas; former dumpsites in turned into urban parks with award winning design; concrete slabs turned into theater stages; sites of demolition and eviction turned into resistance museums and so on. In Rio de Janeiro, these interventions are rarely the result of traditional urban projects and often represent bottom-up solutions that reflect the need of the inhabitants of poorer areas to transgress beyond the idea of scarcity surrounding them and focus on the notion of potency in places still unexplored. These actors are able to see opportunities and possibilities where others cannot in a tactical manner. Their diverse means of appropriating certain hidden places through art and culture also generate a transformation in the uses of spaces, which is representative of the contemporary era where functions are no longer strictly separated, but mixed. Ergo, in today’s reality, the road infrastructure of a peripheral neighborhood can become a temporary cultural center and a bicycle can become an itinerary library in a favela, breaking the strict division of key functions imposed by the strong modernist inheritance still so strong in Brazil, as well as in other countries. In our research, we refer to these examples of fluid appropriation and transformation of uses as “unusual spaces” (“espaços insólitos” in Portuguese). We propose to present this new object of study at this conference through mappings and reflections based upon the theoretical works of authors such as Michel de Certeau (about strategy and tactics), Milton Santos (about space-time relations), Franck & Stevens (about loose spaces), amongst others.
Morro da Favela: Representing Brazilian Urban Peripheries through Visual Media
Amerikastudien/American Studies, 2022
André Diniz’s "Morro da Favela" is a graphic narrative based on the life and work of Maurício Hora, a Brazilian photographer from Morro da Providência. I propose that while Hora’s original photographs represent the image of this favela from the perspective of one of its inhabitants, thus creating a counter-hegemonic visual archive, Diniz’s graphic narrative serves as a remediation object that reinforces Hora’s artistic commitment to social contestation. The formal techniques and the didactic tone stimulate the widespread distribution of the graphic narrative that visually frames Hora’s (auto)biographical storytelling and that has been translated into various languages. The poetics and aesthetics of both registers, photography and graphic narrative, merge in Diniz’s work: they become a counter-hegemonic instrument whose modes of depiction are disassociated from preconceived social constructions of the favela, which have been widely replicated by the media. Key Words:"Morro da Favela"; André Diniz; Maurício Hora; Graphic Narrative; Urban Peripheries
Mega-events constitute crucial happenings in the life of a host city. Rio de Janeiro was chosen for 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics, the last ones of a long series. This research, conducted during the interval between the two happenings, questioned their alleged ‘legacy’ by instead investigating the negative impacts, hereby conceptualised as ‘footprints’. How are mega-events leaving a footprint, affecting Maré – a set of favelas in Rio de Janeiro’s North Zone – and its artists’ activities and ways of resistance? This research made a case of critically contrasting the geography of globalisation and capital (Harvey, Sassen) with the bio-political and state of exception theories (Klein, Agamben), in order to localise the magnitude of mega-events, global trends, media and aesthetics disputes (Jaguaribe, Rancière) in the daily lives of contextually adverse favelas. Indeed, while the position of favelados (favela residents) might be seen as disconnected or threatened – e.g. by crimilitarisation (militarisation of repression coupled with criminalisation of poverty and social movements), pacification and gentrification – it also revealed the rise of transversal and overlapping networks – e.g. organisations and collectives positioning themselves as resistance in the dynamics of oppression. Mega-events were therefore the stage of this inquiry into the interplays of Rio and its favelas, reflected in the case-study of Maré, which was also framed in the context of South Zone real estate speculation, and North Zone military occupations. Mega-event footprints and resistance were thus explored looking at Maré artists. Specifically, Imagens do Povo photographers showed in words and pictures their vocation for the empathetic portrayal of daily life over shocking, stigmatising depictions of favelas. Lastly, this case-study reflected upon the wrestled control over favelas, questioning the future of urbanisation and pacification plans, and the favelados fights for rights, trusting in Imagens do Povo (Images of the People) as a sign of hope and resistance. ‘Vida pulsante’ (pulsating life) is therefore a dedication to the quotidian sprightliness of life in favelas.
Ludic Maps and Capitalist Spectacle in Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro is undergoing a makeover that is undeniably spectacular. Redevelopment schemes are dramatically rearranging the urban landscape, and crucially, this economic growth hinges on the production and circulation of images of the city. This paper explores a site of alterity and resistance where a favela youth collective has re-created Rio from its margins. This miniature world, known as Morrinho and built of bricks, mortar, and re-used materials, hosts a role-playing game featuring thousands of inch-tall avatars. This paper argues that re-visioning the world anew through play makes the society of the spectacle inhabitable and thus contestable. How does the society of the spectacle become a terrain for struggle in Rio? Locating spectacle production in nation-state formation and the urban process, the paper provides a genealogy of the spectacle beyond the modern North Atlantic metropole. Locating the favela within a Brazilian geographical imagination frames ethnographic data collected as an observer and participant in the Morrinho game. While the spectacle may hinge on the relationship between visuality and power, this essay observes how signs take on material lives through ludic re-appropriation. Play becomes a form of commentary, an alternative mode of knowledge about the city, and functions dually as both description of and participant in the social world in which it is embedded.
The Art of Brasília: Spaces, Tactics, and Walks in the Capital's Cultural Texts
Por ser profundo, visceral e difícil identificar, o efeito de Brasília é um tema predileto de artistas. Poemas, canções, crônicas e filmes, dos anos 70 até 2010, capturam esse efeito alarmante que a capital tem sobre seus habitantes. Reciprocamente, textos culturais também divulgam a influência que residentes têm sobre a cidade, influência essa que imbui Brasília com uma vitalidade que está ausente dos planos originais do Distrito Federal. No seu livro A invenção do cotidiano, o filósofo Michel de Certeau observa as formas únicas como as pessoas fazem com que objetos familiares sirvam as suas necessidades e desejos, assim revelando a adaptação de códigos dominantes. Este artigo discute os conceitos de Certeau do estratégico versus o tático, de espace versus lieu e das manipulações da capital feitas pelo transeunte. Tais conceitos iluminam empenhos artísticos de personalizar, satirizar, problematizar e subverter a monumentalidade, a planta utópica e o léxico específico e lógico da cidade.
Multifaceted Art: The Cultural and Political Dynamics of the City of Rio de Janeiro
Revista Vista , 2021
This contribution aims to present a brief summary of a long research based on the events of the last decades in the city of Rio de Janeiro. This article follows a path that seeks primarily to understand the use of cultural and artistic devices as tools for a complex process of changes and perspectives in the city. These changes are driven by the fact that the city of Rio has hosted two mega-events, the FIFA World Cup (2014) and the Olympics (2016), with a strong impact on the central and/or tourist areas of the city. The port area stands out as the main field of this research, from the idea of an abandoned area to the center of a cultural hub, with drastic visual, structural, and symbolic changes, with the building of Museu de Arte do Rio (Rio Museum of Art), and Museu do Amanhã (Museum of Tomorrow), as the main examples. A retrospective of the political life of the city, including the one of its municipal administrations, builds the idea that the instrumentalization of art and its use as a tool to "revitalize" areas of the city is part of an old project which was waiting for the right moment to be put into practice: the hosting of mega events. On the other hand, small autonomous cultural collectives have emerged in the region during this process and inserted new concepts and meanings for the use of art into the discussion, which resulted in a more complex discussion around the port area and its agents. Finally, by analyzing the recent political scenario of the city, it was possible to perceive the offensive posture toward cultural institutions resulting from conservative political perspectives, which again redefines the use of art and culture in the city.
Maré from the Inside: Art, Culture and Politics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2021
Complexo da Maré is a group of 16 contiguous favelas and housing projects in the northern zone of Rio de Janeiro. Home to an estimated 140,000 individuals, Maré is Brazil's largest agglomeration of favelas. Often depicted in a negative light, these favelas are in fact vibrant and diverse communities, as revealed in this remarkable book. Maré from the Inside: Art, Culture and Politics in Rio de Janeiro, BrazilMaré Brazil is a companion to the exhibition of the same name (Portuguese: Maré de DentroDentro), which was developed by an international team of Brazilian and US academics, activists and artists. The exhibition documents the lives of residents of Complexo da Maré through family portraits, street photographs, documentary films and written works. Featured in this book is a selection of the exhibition's photographs by Italian photojournalist Antonello Veneri, who worked closely with Maré resident and activist Henrique Gomes over the period from 2013 to 2019, during which R...
Space and Relationality in Rio's Favelas: Asfalto and Comunidade
In this paper, I offer reflections on contemporary popular culture in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to consider a common metaphor in everyday parlance that pits the objectifying formally urbanized city, called "asphalt," against the informal "communities" of its favelas. With nods to Paul Gilroy's understanding of the Black Atlantic world, Martin Buber's philosophy of dialogue and psychiatric theories of attachment, I explore this contrasting word pairing to locate both a critique of conventional Eurocentric rationalist notions of space, time, knowledge, being and power and an affirmation of an alternative, Afro-Atlantic relational impulse regarding those same categories.