m of care – mar 28 24
pedagogies of care – part 2 [https://museum.care/events/pedagogies-of-care/]:
PEDAGOGIES OF CARE, PART 2
Militant Care. Pedagogies in action. A conversation with Contrafilé Group
The second meeting of Pedagogies of Care project will host a conversation between Brazil based artists and activists Contrafilé Group (currently, Cibele Lucena, Joana Zatz Mussi, and Rafael Leona), Andris Brinkmanis, senior lecturer and the course Leader of BA in Painting and Visual Arts at NABA in Milan and Visiting Professor for the Art Academy of Latvia Curatorial Course and the communities of Museum of Care and David Graeber Institute.
Based in Sao Paulo/Brazil, Grupo Contrafilé is an art-politics-education production group that focuses on the encounters with different people and communities, always from a cartographic perspective, that has as its main working material the listening and the performatization of urgency. Currently, Cibele Lucena, Joana Zatz Mussi, and Rafael Leona are part of this collective. Teachers, researchers and artists who understand education as an important place for creation and inspiration, as it contributes to possible transformations in the collective sensibility and imagination. The group has participated in several exhibitions, such as: Women in fight! Political memory archives (Resistance Memorial, São Paulo, 2023-2024), Meta Archive 1964-1985 – Space for Listening and Reading Stories of the Dictatorship (Resistance Memorial and Sesc, 2019), Talking to Action – Art, Pedagogy and Activism in the Americas (USA, 2017-2019), 31st São Paulo Art Biennial (2014), Radical Education (Slovenia, 2008), Collective Creativity (Germany, 2005). Presently, the Group is developing the School of Testimonies project.
@grupocontrafile
Series of encounters Pedagogies of Care draw inspiration from the legacies of historical figures such as Francisco Ferrer Guardia, Asja Lacis, Bertolt Brecht and Walter Benjamin, Ivan Illich, Augusto Boal, Palle Nielsen, bell hooks and David Graeber among others and aims to foster a debate, bridge and bring together various figures and groups engaged with alternative education on a global scale.
notes/quotes from meeting:
joana zatz mussi: 3 people.. since 2000.. since beginning working in diff frontiers.. reading text today as start.. we are also very curious about pedagogies of care..
cibele lucena: we will present images too..
andris brinkmanis: person i’ve done a lot of research on (?).. but also.. have 2 reps of grupo today.. last time (part 1) .. this time about how can still intervene in public space.. how do you bring artistic and pedagogical together.. ie: listening and ed teaching both as art.. how do you do that practically
rheingold (mom) art law.. art (by day/light) and sleep (by night/dark) as global re\set.. to fittingness (undisturbed ecosystem)
joana: we were a group of students (2000) that needed to create a space diff than market.. started w/urgence of being together in .. we created our own way of doing/saying.. first situation was the perception of public space.. (?) taught us to always be in close relationship w/micr & macro.. we realized our fear to go out.. a culture that invents new ways to say what needs to be said
andris: on reasserting the problem in the street via art/protest/movements/street-party
joana: an assembly of gazes.. where listening/talking as art.. (pics show poster papers with idea flows).. turning style (visible and invisible in that micro/macro politics) as ie of blockages.. it was our thinking about our feeling that was a problem.. so 2 days of workshops.. difficult.. when w/o money.. and to not pay.. they tell you can pass beneath turnstyle but not to jump.. for us was very symbolic .. ok.. can’t pay.. but only if submit your body.. then did monument for the invisible turnstyle.. in downtown sao paolo.. had lots of monuments of people from vculture of history.. writers et al.. people used to steal monuments to sell for money.. so lots of empty bases.. (put turnstyles on top).. after some months journalists saw it and put in media.. and started to discuss it..
cibele: another project.. rebellion of the children inside young people prison.. trying to understand what was happening in that situation.. then started working in the streets in sao paolo.. trying to understand how we can draw in the city.. this image of children like children.. not like criminal/marginals.. how we could use the city with street kids to create this type of image.. so did swing from bridge.. then started building a park in an abandoned area in a collective way with people around this area.. we started imaging a place.. 1 yr project.. creating methodologies to collect desires of neighborhood.. using garbage et al.. to make things (2011)
city sketch up ness
2 yrs later created another one.. this time was less an occupation.. before was not allowed to use area.. it was a communitarian program that just happened.. this time was an invitation from public force of city to collab w neighborhood.. but how we were arriving in the territory with the mayor.. was harder to start it.. whereas in other we started in the community.. we needed more time to explain who we are.. that we are not mayor/institution
next project.. tree school.. 2014.. made w palestinian/italy group.. mediating as artists.. relation between two networks.. (other was black community)
found movement.. against all these things … still so chauvinistic et al.. we started to think together about many things.. now they are de colonizing the tree.. et al.. (again.. poster paper everywhere).. there work was very much about translation.. teaching each other all the time.. 24 hr of learning.. much to do about deep translation.. the land.. right to land.. occupation of land.. return to land.. everything was in discussion here.. then made publication and art installation (balboa tree school).. made many circle talks/discussions along the exhibition
andris: testimony school.. a later project..
2016 – important student movement.. they were occupying school against .. manager was re orging and cutting things from schools.. so they occupied schools/streets.. so we worked w/them.. we were payig attention to their strategies.. they created a lot of strategies of care discourse.. when started sleeping inside schools.. ie: food et al.. painting over military names in school.. we created a space to meet some students and talk about what they were doing/creating/thinking.. we listened/exchanged.. we also went to the schools with them.. but they used this space a lot also.. we used blackboard as table top.. horizontal rather than vertical.. creating idea that we can think together.. school of testimony inspired by this idea.. this kind of table that receives diff marks from diff people and everybody is together writing.. taking notes.. and sharing things at same time.. .. this project was called.. the battle of their lives.. we have a publication of that too..
was a platform to invite artists et al.. to think about the last dictatorship and to go thru archives and understand what to do with this.. and we made an archive .. not of papers.. but of voice.. a video project.. constantly recording/testimony about dictatorship.. the power of archive of voices
listening booth (idec) ness.. and detox room in web in house and non hierarchical listening via nonjudgmental expo labeling (tech as it could be)
it was to listen/talk as art.. to create a space to listen.. not a debate.. not there to ask things to oppressed.. we were there to listen.. how to learn to listen.. how to create this space inside.. to really listen and to understand what we are learning when we are listening.. 14 min performance to listen to a story and people participate taking notes..
andris: your group has always been a big inspiration and reference.. we collab’d with you in 2012 and also disobedience archive.. today also have 2 people from milan.. who i’d gladly invite for next session.. important to see richness of strategies you used..
nika: very impressed by project of playground.. and love idea of who is the artist in this situation.. if you could describe more.. that is probably what museum of care would like to do in st vincent.. to interact as a people..
andris: yes.. so very important to see these other experiences.. i also found incredible how you worked w children.. you gave them some kind of agency.. how did you manage to involve them and keep them coming back and working
joana: when nika first wanted to know more in middle .. i already had thought about that.. we had some methodologies inspired by people w/us.. the people there are poor.. that came .. we always.. just as ie.. for creating confidence relationship.. we talked a lot about our child/inside/internal landscapes.. how to transfer to outside.. feeling and actual landscapes from our history.. so outside but also with care/inside.. also considering there are many violent histories.. so these landscapes are happy or not.. but had to be rep’d in final landscape.. first we called playground to play and think.. the second we called a yard.. (public yard).. private or public.. but it’s what we want to carry.. we use it to talk and listen to what were the yards when they were a child.. many said: my yard was the world.. we started to work with this idea..
joana: moment they started to put hand in land they started to remember they knew lots of things.. it was very emotional.. remembering histories of violence/opposition.. had many of those ie’s
irmela: on universal design.. ie: people who can’t hear .. if archive is voice et al.. how to make more accessible
there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental expo labeling).. to facil a legit global detox leap.. for (blank)’s sake.. and we’re missing it
legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of m\a\p
cibele: about accessibility.. when we listened.. it was videos w audios w/o subtitles/translation-to-sign.. but that is something bigger than us.. but when we did mtgs inside exhibition. there we translated to sign language.. so a small next (step).. but yes it is a complex struggle.. because when it goes to museum.. we have no control
irmela: yeah.. what they do about accessibility
huge point.. even deeper.. has to be everyone..
cibele: part of this text.. we can share with you.. this is our instagram @grupocontrafile.. we have many things there..
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be you. 