The talk program for the third edition of Rotas took place on August 30 and 31, Friday and Saturday, in various formats.
On Friday (30), the panels featured artists and curators discussing specific issues in contemporary Brazilian art.
On Saturday (31), the conversations were in partnership with Bravo!, featuring important Brazilian artists presenting their research and trajectories.
A reflection on how artificial intelligence and electronic media are transforming artistic creation – or at least the traditional circuit of visual arts – while keeping in sight the critical possibilities of articulating the present with ancestry and the future.
Gabriel Massan and Guerreiro do Divino Amor | moderated by Felipe Molitor
Gabriel Massan is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Berlin. He combines storytelling and worldbuilding, creating cosmos that simulate and narrate situations of inequality. Framed by a conceptual practice that he calls “fictional archaeology” and working with 3D animation, digital sculpture, games, sound, and interactive installations, the artist challenges distorted conceptions of the so-called “Third World” while investigating possibilities of subversive otherness.
Guerreiro do Divino Amor (1983) holds a master’s degree in architecture. His work investigates the historical, religious, social, and media fictions that interfere in the construction of territory and collective imagination, forming a science fiction universe from fragments of reality. His research takes the form of films, publications, objects, installations, and lectures.
5 pm
A discussion around the participation of artists with non-hegemonic identities in the art system: how have Indigenous artists been operating in the market and within institutions without losing the power to affirm their identities?
Gustavo Caboco | moderated by Luciara Ribeiro
Gustavo Caboco, from the Wapichana people, works in the areas of visual arts, literature, and cinema. His production unfolds in multiple languages, such as drawing, painting, textiles, installation, performance, photography, video, sound, and text, creating devices for reflection on the displacements of Indigenous bodies, the processes of (re)territorialization, and the production of memory. His artistic training began in childhood in his mother Lucilene Wapichana’s sewing workshop, where she always told him stories about family, landscape, and memories of the maloca in Canauanim, Roraima, from where he was taken at a very young age.
Laís Franklin, editor-in-chief of Bravo!, interviews Ayrson Heráclito. Ogã of Jeje Mahi, a professor at UFRB in the city of Cachoeira/BA, a visual artist, and a curator. He holds a PhD in Communication and Semiotics from PUC São Paulo and a Master’s degree in Visual Arts from UFBA. His works in installations, performances, photography, and audiovisuals engage with elements of Afro-Brazilian culture and its connections between Africa and its diaspora in the Americas.
Laís Franklin, editor-in-chief of Bravo!, interviews Nádia Taquary (1967; Salvador, BA) holds a degree in Literature from UCSAL and a postgraduate degree in Education, Aesthetics, Semiotics, and Culture from UFBA. In her research, she delves into Afro-Brazilian sacred traditions and practices, emphasizing the significant presence of Black women’s leadership in Brazil and their ancestral heritage. Her poetic expression is conveyed through sculptures, installations, and video installations, serving as symbols of identity, spirituality, female empowerment, and freedom.
5 pm
Laís Franklin, editor-in-chief of Bravo!, interviews Thiago Martins de Melo. His work develops through painting, sculpture, installation, stop-motion animation, and printmaking. Using pictorial practice as a starting point, his canvases or objects—often of large dimensions—narrate battles, syncretic rituals, and metaphysical epiphanies, approaching the genres of historical painting and collage. In this way, the artist composes a meta-narrative scheme that portrays episodes of anti-colonial struggles with references to cultural industry and art history.
