Beto Shwafaty, Renverser le regard. Remarques sur les fantômes de la richesse
Reversing the gaze. Note on the ghosts of wealth. Talk by Beto Shwafaty, resident of the research platform “Pratiques d’hospitalité” (ESAD – Grenoble), in discussion with Katia Schneller and Simone Frangi. (Held in English) On Wednesday May 24 th , 2017 at 7 pm in Kadist’s office, Paris. Throughout his practice, Beto Shwafaty questions the existing links between modernity and coloniality and how they appear in visual regimes as well as in the recent and ancient histories of Latin America. Beto Shwafaty will approach these questions starting with his project “Hablemos de Reparaciones” (2016) developed during his residency at Lugar a Dudas, in Cali, Colombia. He will present his video “Afastando el Pueblo, Fantasmas de la Riqueza” (2016) produced for this project in dialogue with the cinematographic critique of Pornomiseria , a term coined by filmmakers Carlos Mayolo and Luis Ospina to describe the sensationalist depiction of poverty in the so-called Third World. This critique was articulated by them in the film “Agarrando el pueblo” (“The Vampires of Poverty”) directed in 1977 by Luis Ospina and Carlos Mayolo. In reconnecting with the notion of Pornomiseria, Beto Schwafaty updated and reversed the statement made by Ospina and Mayolo. He focused on recent representations showing Latin American countries as flourishing territories where one can become rich. These new regimes of representation flatten the strong existing inequalities and reinforce old aspects of colonialism with a new aesthetic. Old myths of poverty are replaced by fantasies of wealth and development. This talk will introduce questions related to Latin America, to post-colonial approaches, to new rhetorics of economic development and social progress, which the new waves of global and neo-colonial populism rely upon. About the participants: Born in 1977 and based in Sao Paulo, Beto Shwafaty produces installations, videos and sculptural objects. He is interested in how historical episodes pervade in objects, spaces, and sociocultural structures. In 2017, he will participate in “Learning from Latin America”, PST Getty Foundation, Los Angeles and will be in residency at Gasworks, London. Based on the interpolations of artistic, curatorial, and theoretical practices, the research platform “Pratiques d’hospitalité” (Practices of Hospitality), hosted at the ESAD – Grenoble art school, examines the notion of hospitality as a critical tool allowing to question in a post-national and non-Eurocentric perspective, the subjectivation processes linked to territoriality, and from there, rethink the role of sexuality, gender, ethnicity and social class within the global phenomena of power and inequality. Taking the elaboration of post-capitalist ethics as an epistemic horizon, “Pratiques d’hospitalité” seeks to produce a thinking adapted to the material conditions of contemporary geopolitical existence.