1st Frestas Triennial

O que seria do mundo sem as coisas que não existem?
(What would be about the world without the things that don’t exist?)

23 October 2014 – 3 May 2015

Sorocaba, São Paulo, Brazil

Curator: Josué Mattos

Its creation was inspired by the striking experiences provided by the project “Terra Rasgada”, held in the 1990s, in partnership with local artists. The two projects carry in their tittles the meaning of the name “Sorocaba” that, translated from Tupi-Guarani, means “place of slit”.

With execution by Sesc and curation by Josué Mattos, the transdisciplinary project, focused on the visual arts, has participation of artists of different generations and nationalities. It is developed from the interrogative “What would the world be without the things that do not exist?”, inspired by the play “What would we be without the things that do not exist?” conceived and set up in 2006 by Lume Teatro – Núcleo Interdisciplinar de Pesquisas Teatrais da Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Interdisciplinary Core of Theater Research at the University of Campinas).

With the purpose of creating collaborative actions between private and independent local institutions, as well as combing educative processes and continuing education partnerships were established with the Sorocaba City Hall, through the Secretary of Culture. The Estrada de Ferro Sorocabana Museum, Barracão Cultural, Palacete Scarpa and Pátio Cianê Shopping also cover the project.

In 2015, the continuity of Frestas foresees the holding of an international symposium that will present reflections concerning the triennial, as well as the Poipoidrome project, featuring works by artists from the region who since 2013 have attended the meetings of the Studio for Research in Visual Poetics, coordinated by curator Josué Mattos, along with works by invited artists.

Curatorial Concept:

What is the potential role of gaps in an urban surface, in social political or symbolic contexts? At first sight, their schisms redefine the experience of space. They divide, reconfigure, rename the things and the places circumscribed within their borders. On the other hand, there are gaps which not only cleave a determined surface and block its fluidity and the way it is perceived, filled and experienced, but also, by their breaking of spatiotemporal paradigms, give rise to the “invention of memories,” as well as actions with the power to interrogate the norm, potentize the disorder, redefine obsolescence and ruin. The gaps can also redraw the lines that enlarge or restrict citizenship, subjective activity and the resulting emancipation of the subject in light of unforeseen situations. Because, how can we deal with the unexpected, with the unforeseen and with the unknown, except by going through them, which is the same as constructing gaps in their truths? Gaps also appear in human relations when they arise to split masks or to tear away the crystallized values related to failure and to success in the contemporary world; to profit and loss; and to order and disorder in the collectivity.

But the gaps in the context of the Trienal de Artes also arise as a way to live with and translate the broad meaning of the name given to this land by its original inhabitants, the indigenous Tupiniquins. In their language of Tupi-Guarani the name of this land consisted of the root word sorok, “land,” together with the substantivizing suffix -aba, “torn,” for an overall meaning of “torn land,” or in Portuguese, “terra rasgada,” the name of the project carried out in the 1990s, which Frestas – Trienal de Artes seeks to reinvent, this time in open dialogue with the world. The suffix -aba of Sorocaba is what qualifies this land as the “place of tearing.” And since the abrupt act of tearing, which can also be seen as a rupture or as an interval between two moments of existence, is what generates borderline areas, which draws the margins and the center, which constructs boundaries, imposes specific meanings for neighboring territories – which, in turn, distances them conceptually – this Trienal de Artes aims to become a platform for art to become, effectively, a legitimate interlocutor in the process of forming the symbolic image of the city and region and, consequently, of citizenship, of the construction of subjectivity and of the poetic-collaborative actions able to activate unusual readings of the world.

Throughout the months from October 2014 to May, 2015, we will bring together artists from different parts of the world in Sorocaba, where exhibitions will be held along with theater and music shows, interventions in different places and museums in the city, projections of feature-length films in our cinema room constructed on the SESC parking ramp, as well as performances in transdisciplinary artistic actions. It will generally occupy the buildings of SESC Sorocaba, the main hall of the Palacete Scarpa, the Museu da Estrada de Ferro Sorocabana, the Barracão Cultural and a store at Pátio Cianê Shopping, finding gaps in these spaces intended for different practices. Which means considering art as it infiltrates different contexts, whether involving sports, politics or history, or with a social, educational, economic, charitable, mythic or fictitious nature. As an apparently anonymous character, art produces its gaps in contemporary day-to-day life and valorizes the free formation and production of meanings for the world through interchange and transdisciplinarity.

Through actions and exhibition segments that bring artists together with professionals active in different areas of knowledge, with meetings for dialogs or centers for research in visual poetics, the Frestas project can, with the gradual engagement of the entire city, participate in the construction of a scene for contemporary art worldwide. The first edition of any project is given the license to dream, because history has not yet imposed its limits and its lacks. We therefore dream about this project being a real alternative for the configuration of other designs able to circulate the transdisciplinary values that art bears, and which it desires to move to different places, producing eruptions in the real, in order to ensure that the subject does not emerge unscathed from this “place of tearing” which, on another scale, is the world in which we live. – Josué Mattos

Participating Artists:

• Adela Jušić (1982, Sarajevo, Bósnia e Herzegovina)
• Adrian Melis (1985, Havana, Cuba /Amsterdam, Holanda)
• Afonso Tostes (1965, Belo Horizonte / Rio de Janeiro, Brasil)
• Amilcar Packer (1984, Santiago, Chile / São Paulo, Brasil)
• Ana Gallardo (1958, Rosário, Buenos Aires, Argentina)
• Ana Tomimori (1980, Atibaia / São Paulo, Brasil)
• Andrés Aizicovich (1985. Buenos Aires, Argentina)
• Anton Steenbock (1984, Frankfurt, Alemanha / Rio de Janeiro, Brasil)
• Bayrol Jiménez (1984, Oaxaca, México / Paris, França)
• Bárbara Wagner (1980, Brasília, Brasil / Berlim, Alemanha)
• Beto Magalhães (1964, Belo Horizonte, Brasil), Cao Guimarães (1965, Belo Horizonte, Brasil) e Lucas Bambozzi (1965, Matão/ São Paulo, Brasil)
• Bil Lühmann (1985, São João da Boa Vista / Florianópolis, Brasil)
• Bjørn Erik Haugen (1977, Oslo, Noruega)
• Brígida Baltar (1959, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil)
• Bruno Kurru (1984, São Bernardo do Campo / São Paulo, Brasil)
• Bruno Moreschi (1982, Maringá, Paraná / São Paulo, Brasil) e Cristina Garrido (1986, Madri, Espanha)
• Bruno Vilela (1977, Recife, Brasil)
• Caetano Dias (1959, Feira de Santana / Salvador, Brasil)
• Carlos Castro (1976, Bogotá, Colômbia / San Diego, EUA)
• Carlos Motta (1978, Bogotá, Colômbia / Nova Iorque, EUA)
• Cido Garoto (1942, Ibitinga / Sorocaba, Brasil)
• Chto Delat? (2003, São Petersburgo, Rússia)
• Daniel Santiago (1939, Garanhuns / Recife, Brasil)
• Deyson Gilbert (1985, São José do Egito / São Paulo, Brasil) e Luísa Nóbrega (1984, São Paulo, Brasil)
• Dionisio González (1965, Gijon / Sevilha, Espanha)
• Dos à Deux (1997, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil e Paris, França) e Luís Melo (1957, Curitiba, Brasil)
• Evandro Machado (1973, Blumenau / Rio de Janeiro, Brasil)
• Emmanuel Lagarrigue (1972, Estrasburgo, / Paris, França)
• Fayçal Baghriche (1972, Skikda, Argélia / Paris, França)
• Felippe Moraes (1988, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil)
• Fernando Arias ( 1963, Armênia / Bogotá, Colômbia)
• Frente 03 de Fevereiro (2004, São Paulo, Brasil)
• Irmãos Guimarães (1989, Brasília, Brasil)
• James Webb (1975, Cape Town, África do Sul)
• Joana Corona (1982, Pato Branco / 2014, Curitiba, Brasil)
• Jonas Arrabal (1984, Cabo Frio / Rio de Janeiro, Brasil)
• Julia Kater (1980, Paris, França / São Paulo, Brasil)
• Kauê Garcia (1984, Campinas, Brasil)
• Kilian Glasner (1977, Recife / Gravatá, Brasil)
• Kristina Norman (1979, Talim, Estonia)
• Laura Belém (1974, Belo Horizonte, Brasil)
• Lenora de Barros (1953, São Paulo / Nova Iorque, EUA)
• Luísa Nóbrega (1984, São Paulo, Brasil)
• Lume Teatro (1985, Campinas, Brasil)
• Malu Saddi (1976, São Paulo, Brasil)
• Marcela Armas (1976, Durango / Cidade do México, México)
• Marcelo Moscheta (1976, São José do Rio Preto / Campinas, Brasil)
• Maya Watanabe (1983, Lima, Peru / Madrid, Espanha)
• Neha Choksi (1973, EUA / Bombaim, Índia)
• Núria Güell (1981, Girona, Espanha)
• Priscila Fernandes (1981, Porto, Portugal / Rotterdam, Holanda)
• Raquel Stolf (1975, Indaial / Florianópolis, Brasil)
• Regina Parra (1981, São Paulo, Brasil)
• Rithy Panh (1964, Phnom Penh, Camboja / Paris, França)
• Rochelle Costi (1961, Caxias do Sul / São Paulo, Brasil)
• Rodrigo Torres (1981, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil)
• Romuald Hazoumé (1962, Porto Novo, República do Benim)
• Sandra Cinto (1968, Santo André / São Paulo, Brasil)
• Société Réaliste (2004, Paris, França)
• Tamara Kuselman (1980, Buenos Aires, Argentina / Amsterdam, Holanda)
• Teresa Siewerdt (1982, Florianópolis / São Paulo, Brasil)
• Tom Zé (Irará, 1936 / São Paulo, Brasil)
• Valérie Mréjen (1969, Paris, França)
• Vasco Araújo ( 1975, Lisboa, Portugal)
• Véio (1948, Nossa Senhora da Glória, Brasil)
• Veronica Stigger (1973, Porto Alegre / São Paulo, Brasil)
• Victor Leguy (1979, São Paulo, Brasil)
• Waléria Américo (1978, Fortaleza, Brasil)

“Ateliê aberto para a Invenção do Inexistente”

• Ana Teixeira (1957, Caçapava, / São Paulo, Brasil)
• Diego de los Campos (1971, Montevideo, Uruguai / Florianópolis, Brasil)
• Egídio Rocci (1960, Caçapava/ São José dos Campos, Brasil)
• Hugo Richard (1977, Miracema / Rio de Janeiro, Brasil) e Natali Tubenchlak (1975, Niterói / Rio de Janeiro, Brasil).
• Igor Vidor (1985, São Paulo / Rio de Janeiro, Brasil)
• Jorge Menna Barreto (1970, Araçatuba/ Florianópolis, Brasil)
• Leonardo Gallep (1986, Sorocaba, Brasil)
• Lia Chaia (1978, São Paulo, Brasil) e Thiago Amoral (1982, Taubaté / São Paulo, Brasil)
• Marcelo Moscheta (1976, São José do Rio Preto / Campinas, Brasil)
• Marie Carangi (1989, Recife, Brasil)
• Reginaldo Pereira (1969, Florida Paulista / São Paulo, Brasil)
• Renata Cruz (1964, Araçatuba / São Paulo, Brasil)
• Roberto Freitas (1977, Buenos Aires, Argentina / São Paulo, Brasil)
• Rogério Ghomes (1966, Ponta Grossa / Londrina, Brasil)
• Silvan Kälin (1981, Lucerna, Suiça / Recife, Brasil)
• Tiago Judas (1978, São Paulo, Brasil)

Image: Caetano Dias, Geographic Animal, 2010, video, 14’. Courtesy  Frestas Triennial.