Unravelling Stories
Unravelling Stories Women Artists in KADIST’s and Videobrasil’s Collections Six women artists from three continents endeavor to unravel plots that stem from patriarchal myths and narratives in the new exhibition, Unravelling Stories . Curated by Catalina Lozano (KADIST) and Solange Farkas (Videobrasil) the exhibition brings a series of exhibitions dedicated to women artists whose works are part of both institutions’ collections, focusing on issues and media that lie at the forefront of contemporary art to a close. By employing different strategies to address and tackle history, the artists featured in Unravelling Stories reflect on the present and propose non-hegemonic ways of conceiving reality. In Teomama (2018) artist Alicia smith investigates Mexican foundational narratives to invoke forces that are channeled through the female body. The theme of ancestry is also present in Rosana Paulino’s Das avós (2018), which proposes an amorous and loving interaction by drawing on the figures of black enslaved women from colonial Brazil. In Europa Enterprise-0 (EE-0) (2018), artist Lala Rascic re-examines Eurocentric myths from a feminist standpoint, while Laura Huertas Millán follows the everyday life of Mexican women who weave traditional motifs while discussing their ideas on freedom in La Libertad (2016). In La vida em rojo , Julia Mensch revisits the memories of three generations of her family, who were active members of the Communist Party of Argentina. In wa akhiran musiba (2017), Maya Shurbaji weaves together seemingly unrelated episodes to address an unspeakable trauma that is intimately related to womanhood. Marked by personal stories that touch on broader themes, the works grapple with and challenge the myth of the honorable white man by proposing an unravelled, open-ended and hybrid subjectivity, questioning how and from what vantage point truth is written. Unravelling Stories is the last in the Women artists in the KADIST’s and Videobrasil’s Collections series, which previously featured exhibitions dedicated to the works of Lynn Hersman Leeson and Gabriela Golder. The series celebrates the diversity of feminine and feminist perspectives found in both collections and their contribution to the field of video art and to discussions surrounding key contemporary issues. Women Artists in KADIST’s and Videobrasil’s Collections is a six-month collaboration between KADIST and Videobrasil consisting of three exhibitions that delve into the work of women artists who explore specific ways of creating moving images from situated perspectives. Spanning diverse sensibilities, methodologies, and media, the works consider different ways of approaching art practice, knowledge, and the relation to the present from clearly feminist stands, affirming the agency of art as a transformative force. Founded by Solange O. Farkas in 1991, the Associação Cultural Videobrasil maintains an important audiovisual collection with a focus on both historical and present-day productions from the geopolitical South – Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. By drawing on its collection and partnering up with a vast international collaborative institutional network, Videobrasil carries out curatorial, research, promotion, and mapping actions such as the Sesc_Videobrasil Contemporary Art Biennial and the Videobrasil On-Line cultural program.