crônica de uma residência
o início da operação Macabéa
CATALOG TEXT
I went to the residency in order to learn about literary methodology in writing about recent experience and/or stream of consciousness. This involved reading two books: Samuel R. Delany’s ‘The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and science fiction writing in the East Village’ and Jill Johnston’s ‘Marmalade Me’. The recent experience—and focus of writing—was revisiting a prior home, Cairo, Egypt to interview a long-time friend from Sudan, an important filmmaker in exile of the ongoing civil war. The magazine article will soon come to print, yet the juxtaposition of learning to write it was jarring. I learned to let myself be inside the writing. Where better to be jarred / egged / edged onward to something new than on another planet in the wilderness with other spies and a band of angels, robotrons, wood nymphs, bandits, avatars and faeries?
STRUCTURE
The residency would be in the mountains at an eco-village. This is a global movement of spaces. I visited Tamera in Portugal, which is another community in the network some years back. A three-week period would yield a three-day exhibition at a space in Rio de Janeiro two months later. As a writer, I didn’t know whether I would have anything to show in general and/or—wanting to cling to a visual practice—a material work that might show up in the already-short duration of the Rio show. Nor was there any pressure to participate in the culminating show.
After three weeks together, one wanted to go to Rio to support new friends. But also to share something new, something that came from the time in the mountains.
[*Perhaps the take-away for me is that ‘showing up’ in writing is not so different from showing up in other art contexts—e.g. this short Rio show, which looked so nice by the way—and that I normally want to be noticed therein but not as the centerpiece. However, when an effort is given and reception is apathetic, I may ruminate in an inefficient manner: Why make what you think is art when it is barely visible? Why make something that will have to be explained? Will this performance-bent-related-to-graffiti-somehow be any different—more visible—than past projects? And, perhaps most important, is it important to be visible?]
PROPS
I would co-host a talk on the last of the three-day Rio show alongside a fellow artist with whom I’d clicked during the three-week residency in the mountains. Like her visual work on paper, canvas and clay inspired my writing in real time. Our conversations were an added delight. It truly meant something to work together again. She encouraged me in visual ways when my writing seemed locked away under layers of screens in a way whereby I would never be able to see all of them at once. However, she came to the talk (aka lecture performance) with a hangover that was deleterious to the casual plans laid for the event, which turned out to be the closing event. She bought the ingredients for the green juice that another artist would make, similar to her green juice workshops during the residency in the mountains. We communicated in a WhatsApp group. I picked a space outdoors with a lovely rock table; brought snacks and encouraged others to as well. I borrowed a blender for the green juice, and arranged extension cord, cups, trash and seating; however I missed a beat near the end: the exhibition space was closing swiftly at 5pm, which was also our end time. This prompted a dispersal of the artists and public (their friends) before the juice was distributed. Most of it was sitting in cups on the rock table, and I’d already tried to hand it out to the juice-maker’s objection. They were trying to prepare enough servings for the evolving public, which is usually impossible. In the process, all the public was lost at once. When I showed some frustration, I was assured that we’d have a toast after the artists retrieved their art works (again, the show was very short). However, we had a larger public than only participating artists, an outside public that normally one would cater to first, and not necessarily all at once. The opportunity was lost and I cooled down relatively quick, noticing that my frustration was being noticed. Other than food, the props arranged on the table were as follows:
small ceramic medallion and blue string from residency
small ceramic cobra
small bronze pyramid
3 books: o livro do GIA, What do artists know?, Hour of the Star
DIY window garden guides
small cloth artwork from other artist
picture of cat
coaster from Cairo
yellow RUSH socks
black linen jumpsuit
notebook with new drawing from Rio
RESULTS
At least four things came from the trip to Rio, which was not an obligatory function of the residency in the mountains, but cannot be separated from the overall process. Knowing that just getting out of the house in São Paulo would be fruitful, I planned to read Clarice Lispector’s last book, ‘Hour of the Star’ on the bus ride. And just as the protagonist’s name appeared almost halfway through, I decided to call the trip—and its outcomes—Operation Macabéa:
completed article and now moving on to focus on a Rio-based artist in my second piece for the same publication;
began drawings for a forthcoming wheat paste panel—with sticker element—for São Paulo and Rio;
reconnaissance regarding a return visit to Rio for the International AIDS conference in July 2026;
practiced a performance that while barely visible, provided the grounds for improvement critique.