Laura Vinci
Laura Vinci, No Ar, exhibited at Mube in 2017, will be adapted for this year's Flip - photo Nelson Kon/ Disclosure

the very traditional International Literary Festival of Paraty, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, which this year takes place between the 10th and 14th of July, has never stopped reinventing itself and exploring novelties to compose its structures. This will be the 17th edition of the event and is curated by journalist and editor Fernanda Diamant, one of the creators of Quatro Cinco Um magazine, specialized in literature. The honoree of the time is the writer and journalist from Rio de Janeiro Euclides da Cunha (1866-1909), author of the acclaimed book The Sertões, considered by many to be a work that started literary journalism in the country, long before the term existed.

Among the transitions and novelties, the organization of Flip, which is under the general direction of Mauro Munhoz, announced a desire to encourage the development of activities related to the visual arts in the event's itinerary, in addition to what already happens spontaneously in the city. This is how the project was presented. Terra Nova, a visual arts module that intends to carry out interventions that integrate in a certain way with Paraty: “From the beginning, Flip has the intersection between the arts in its DNA. Year after year, we built a connection between different artistic experiences, including the visual arts. Now, we feel the need to make this relationship more visible. The Newfoundland is an artistic device to illuminate issues that permeate the territory of the city, its residents and its visitors. One of Flip's missions is to investigate how art can help qualify people's eyes for human relationships produced in public spaces, and the Terra Nova will propose mechanisms of perception of this territory and its complexities through art”, Mauro told ARTE!Brasileiros.

The project was launched in early June during an event at Casa do Parque, in São Paulo, where the sponsors program specially developed for this initiative was presented. The patronage plan is aimed at individuals and is the main and exclusive way to make this idea viable. People who wish to contribute to the project will have some benefits such as tickets, preferential access to Flip's main program that takes place in the Auditorium da Matriz, invitations to other events organized by the fair's organization and exclusive works by Laura Vinci, an artist confirmed to participate in the first intervention of Terra Nova.

Invited by the curator, Vinci will present her installation Up in the air, presented for the last time in 2017, at MuBE, in São Paulo, and which has already passed through several places, including some countries in Europe. Other interventions are still being discussed for reasons of budget feasibility, even because of this the presentation of the patrons program was crucial for everything to start to be established.

The choice of Up in the air to integrate the project's premiere was discussed between the artist and the curator: “It's a work that has this characteristic of adapting a lot, it reinvents itself in place. He's a work that's mist, it's just vapor. So he easily clings to the space situation. There are works that demand specific spatialities and the Up in the air no, he just needs water”, says the artist. The fluidity of the steam in Laura's work allows the public to discover different forms in the variations that the smoke creates in the space, in addition to the characteristic of the work itself transforming the place where it is.

Regarding the interdisciplinarity that permeates Flip and the proposal to insert the arts in a more punctual way, Laura has no doubt that the country is experiencing a moment in which collaboration between the areas is something necessary: ​​“This is a very important thing for us , amplify that and strengthen those relationships,” she says. For her, there are some areas that are more punctually and strongly linked to literature, such as cinema. “In the visual arts this is not so clear, but I think we can start to find these encounters”, she comments, citing her work as an example of this confluence. world machine, which focuses on a poem by Carlos Drummond de Andrade.

The poem is also the starting point for another intervention that will be held at Flip: world machines, a performance by the art group of the mundane theater company, which Laura is part of together with Roberto Audio, Flora Belloti, Yghor Boy, Guilherme Calzavara, Beatriz Camelo, Diogo Costa, Alessandra Domingues, Wellington Duarte, Ivan Garro, Luah Guimarães, Flora Kountouriotis, Cesar Lopes, Renato Mangolin, Rafael Matede, Mariano Mattos Martins, Diego Moschkovich, Rogério Pinto, Joana Porto, Tarina Quelho, Roberta Schioppa, Marília Teixeira and José Miguel Wisnik. The initiative proposes “to bridge the gap between narrative and visual art, between installation and the action of actors”.

Visual Arts at the Main Auditorium

In Flip's most popular program, which takes place in an auditorium set up inside the Igreja Matriz in the city of Paraty, the visual arts will also be present in different formats. On Thursday, July 11, photographer Maureen Bissiliat will be interviewed by Miguel de Castillo and Rita Palmeira at table 6, entitled Serra Grande.  A  English photographer based in Brazil dedicated herself to the encounter between word, image and geography throughout her trajectory, known especially for her work with the peoples of the Xingu.

At table 12, Mata de Corda,  artist Grada Kilomba is questioned by Kalaf Epalanga and Lilia Schwarcz about the issues surrounding her book Memórias da Plantação, to be released during the event by publisher Cobogó. In it, the artist discusses themes such as race, class, gender and post-colonialism, which are already very present in her work. Then, at table 13, Ailton Krenak and José Celso Martinez Correa talk about valuing culture, fertile lands for art and diversity, mediated by Camila Mota. The activities take place on the 12th of July and, on the following day, tables with Ismail Xavier, Miguel Gomes, Grace Passô, Marina Person and José Miguel Wisnik will also bring the visual arts to the fair in their discussions around cinema, dramaturgy, art and literature.


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