Contemporary Entities

Application summary

In 2019, I spent a period in Mexico, where I reconnected with my ancestral indigenous side. I started a research project called "Contemporary Entities", which involves artistic creations intertwining the spiritual, the political and the poetic. These entities are spiritual creatures that address political issues in the territories where they are born or visit. For them, I create costumes, assign characteristics and develop rituals where I invite people who want to activate and incorporate them. Finally, I make photographic and video records of the activation, which I later present in the form of installations, becoming memory archives. At the Saari Residence, I want to continue this research project (month 1) by creating(month 1 and 2) and activating (month 2) a new entity linked to the local landscape that brings up political questions and emotional experiences related to this territoriality. Trough my costumes I access different people. They offer protection, comfort and transport this people to other layers inside their minds, activating their imagination, intuition, memories and bringing back remnants of ancestry. My aim with this project is to consciously create a collective memory with the people involved; to search for strategies for a healing in a society marked by capitalist trauma; to find ways of dialoguing about painful topics through a poetic format, in an attempt to dissolve the pain without forgetting the problem. I am a woman of afro-indigene descent, who grew up in the Amazon region in the city of Belém, in the state of Pará. I grew up in an environment of contrasts and syncretisms which has shaped my political, poetical, social, environmental and artistic vision. Based on my ancestry I see art and spirituality as a single manifestation, translating through different mediums the concerns that my body and spirit carry, always dialoguing with the people I meet and the environment that permeates me.