Videobrasil Artist Residency Program: Ali Cherri in Poland

The 2014 residency season of the 18th Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil opens in April, fostering artistic exchange between Lebanon and Poland and a new 30 Years exhibition in Warsaw

Ali Cherri kicks off the 2014 season of the Videobrasil Artist Residency Program. The artist is based in Beirut, Lebanon, and won the Resartis Residency Prize at the 18th edition of the Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil for his video installation Pipe Dreams. This month, he will begin developing his creative process at the A-I-R Laboratory (Artists in Residency Laboratory), in Warsaw, Poland, where he will also feature in an exhibition and be paid a visit by Videobrasil curator and director general Solange Farkas, and programming director Thereza Farkas. “The new feature of the residencies this year is that they will include shows and public program activities in some locations, in a bid for closer contact with the organizations and artists involved,” says Solange, who is preparing an address and an exhibition highlighting Videobrasil’s 30th anniversary at the Kinolab contemporary art center, in Warsaw.

Apart from Cherri, eight other artists have won two-month residencies at Videobrasil residency network partner organizations around the world. Ayrson Heráclito, Gabriel Mascaro and Virgínia de Medeiros (Brazil), Bakary Diallo (Mali), Basir Mahmood (Pakistan), Laura Huertas Millan (Colombia), LucFosther Diop (Cameroon) and Nurit Sharett (Israel) will engage in experiences of exchange and displacement at 12 facilities in five different countries (Brazil, USA, China, Poland, Mexico and Senegal). Click here for additional information on the artists, their works and the organizations involved.

Solange Farkas believes what sets the Festival’s Residency Prize apart is the participation and involvement of network partner organizations “both in the event itself—as participants in the public programs’ meetings and debates—and in the artist selection process,” explains the Videobrasil director and curator. After the international award jury announces the winners, the residency network partners convene and decide, collectively and based on the profiles of each of the artists, which are best suited to each of the programs.

Thus, in this latest edition, the Brazilian artist Ayrson Heráclito, whose poetics are connected with Afro-Brazilian rituals and religiosity, is undertaking his residency at the Raw Material Company, in Dakar, Senegal. Africa’s Bakary Dialo, whose work addresses both the political conflicts in Mali, and elements pertaining to mysticism and “magical nature,” will have his residency at the Sacatar Institute, in Bahia, which is Heráclito’s native state.

Public programs in residency
From this year on, Videobrasil plans on improving its monitoring of the residencies and strengthening its relationship with different regions. Solange and Thereza Farkas’ trip to Poland is one in a series of strategies devised to establish a stronger connection with artists in residency and the network partners, and closer contact with other local organizations and artists. “We want to keep better track of the residency experience and to have a closer connection with certain regions. Holding a video exhibit and a public programs activity in Poland during Ali Cherri’s residency is a way for us to be close to him and the A-I-R, but also to broaden the scope of our research on Eastern European contemporary art,” says Videobrasil programming director Thereza Farkas, who is planning similar programs this year during residencies in New York, Beijing, Dakar and the Island of Itaparica (in Bahia).

In late April, at the Kinolab, Solange Farkas will give the inaugural address for the show 30 Years of Videobrasil—The trajectory of video in the context of art. Aside from a piece by Ali Cherri himself, the show will feature videos by 12 other artists from Brazil and the world, made from the 80s until now. “We want to strengthen our network of partners and to foster exchange between artists and organizations from the geopolitical South of the world,” says Solange Farkas.

April–May 2014
A-I-R Laboratory
Center for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle
ul. Jazdów 2
00-467 Warsaw

Video Programme: 30 Years of Videobrasil
Opening: Thursday, 24 April 2014, 6pm
Public talk with Videobrasil curator and director general Solange Farkas
Screenings:
Thursday, 24 April, 7pm
Saturday, 26 April, 6pm
Kinolab
Center for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle
ul. Jazdów 2
00-467 Warsaw