“We, as artists, are not external to the world we inhabit.
Even if our works dream of other possible imaginaries, they do so in reference to our lived experiences and the places we exist in. Artists are permeable beings that equally permeate their environment in a multitude of ways, be it in the ecologic, economic or social sphere. We do so by choosing the materials we use, how we source them, by choosing our thematics, who and what we include in our realms, by our audience, by how we profit or not.
We are inherently bound to the world. And so, we, makers and shapeshifters, are responsible for our own narratives. We have the power to create new tales and to speak our truth. And, most importantly, we decide how to.
All my art is political. Nevertheless, I am not a political artist, I am a political being. For in my existence, we intersect. Everything I am becomes more than my reality. My truth becomes yours, for we exist together, we mourn together, we suffer together, we save together, we kill together. And so, as creators, we have the responsibility to break old contracts and share information with those around us. Through poetics and storytelling, we can produce political meaning in a way that politicians never could. We can create new laws and new perceptions through previously existing human bonds. Like an alchemist, merging poetics and politics, we open a space for healing and transformation enabling people to come together and process their experiences in a creative and collaborative way.
Laurie Anderson said in an interview run by Christian Lund at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art: “(...) I hear ideas about ‘art should make the world a better place’... It just makes my blood wrinkle! Like, better for who?... Secretly, I do make art to make the world a better place, but I would never say that.”
True accountability requires holding space for the unknown, for being changed by our encounters with others rather than simply seeking to change them. It requires being critical, without owning fundamental truths. When we become too rigid about our transformative intentions, we risk imposing our vision of "better" without genuine dialogue. All humans, and I would further say all beings, exist in this same dynamic of mutual influence and interconnectedness. The individual ripples through the collective, and the collective ripples through the individual.
JUTA evoques the past and present of Barreiro’s post-industrial site, where CUF (Factory Union Company) was once located. It brings to life the memory of those who gave their life to the industry, sometimes quite literally, in hopes of a better life. In a series of found objects that come to life through video screenings, JUTA tells a tale of oppression and possibility.
STEEL WHEELS, STILL DRIVING. STILL HERE, STILL FIGHTING is a call for action. Bodies bounded unbound. They hurt so much. Dance. The. Pain. Away. Rooted in the artist’s experiences of the anti-fascist and pro-Palestina protests in Amsterdam over the last year, this work brings together dance, poetry, video, textile and sound, centering the body in the fight against oppression, police violence and right-wing extremism.
Performers: Luz, Valentina Cadena.
Sound: Gustaw Opiełka. Includes the full track “Manus Planus Danus” by Scúru Fitchádu (used with permission of the artist).
Storytelling as Social Infrastructure
The stories we tell about ourselves, our communities, and our possibilities shape the imagination available for creating more sustainable ways of living together. By refusing the spectator-performer / audience-artist divide, and instead creating dialogue, open ended, constantly mutating tales, every act of creative expression becomes a seed in our collective future.
In my work I research these possibilities within folklore and performance, in acts of protest and demonstrations against political oppression. Folklore as a tool for collectiveness and action, seeking to distance the term from fascism and nationalism, regaining and demanding control of our collective identity. Folklore not as a privileged study conducted by the intellectual bourgeoise, mutating cultural reality to fit its propagandistic behavior, but folklore as the vernacular practices of a communal body, centered in community building and coexistence, challenging capitalist notions of artistic production and consumption. By the people, for the people.
A folklore of Protest.
A folklore that is not passive but in constant mutation.
Ours to birth. Ours to kill.
A folklore that is not oppressive, nor limiting.
A folklore born from precarity, but is not precarious.
A folklore built on resisting.
A tale of oppression, that is no longer.
Dream of revolution.
A folklore that cannot be tamed.
Cannot be claimed.
A ruleless folk. ‘Though critical.
A folklore that defies ownership.
Resists categorization.
Belongs to all who dare to speak it,
Dance it, live it.
Always critical.
Accountability in coexistence.
A folklore of Protest
Embodied. Felt. Dealt.
Ritualistic in our rebellion.
We dance politics.
Our bodies unbound.
Longing for each other.
Dancing resistance.
Dance. The. Pain. Away.
Physical political action
A folklore that is a Political Movement in its literal sense.
More than theoretical, a lived one.
Moving.
Forever in protest. Forever in progress.
Dance. The. Pain. Away.
Content of this page was created by Rita Borralho Silva