After being nominated for PIPA Prize, each artist is entitled to pages on the Prize’s Portuguese and English websites. These pages together compose a catalog of Brazilian contemporary art, for they are filled with images of works, videos, texts, CVs and other content the participants wish to send. The Prize team encourages the artists to keep their pages up to date and is always available to receive material. In addition, PIPA participants are also invited to record a video interview with Do Rio Filmes, thus having another space to share their works and their creative processes.
The participating artists were nominated by the Nominating Committee, composed of art professionals from all over Brazil, in which each member can send up to three names. From the 66 artists nominated for PIPA Prize 2022, 61 are participating in this edition, 49 of which are first-timers.
Like the previous year, the Prize decided to focus on a more recent production, nominating artists who must have had their first solo or group exhibition no longer than 15 years ago. The Prize’s goal is to be a boost for artists at the beginning of their career who develop distinguished works.
In this post, we present a few of the 61 participants of PIPA 2022. Click on their names to access their pages and to know more about their production:
Alan Adi’s work (Aracaju, 1986) commonly involves researching topics related to the formation of Brazilian society from the perspective of the northeast region of Brazil, highlighting the artistic production coming from this region at the same time that this production supports the construction of works that discuss matters such as migration, economy, history and education. Interactions between the social heritage of images associated with the “Nordeste” and the current context of the nation take up most of his recent research, which is linked to the usual formats of what was historically determined as visual poetics from the region.
Video produced by Do Rio Filmes exclusively for PIPA 2022:
With her artistic practice, Aline Motta (b. 1974, Niterói, Brazil) seeks to point out and fill in the gaps in her own family history as a result of colonial erasure. Her videos, photographs, installations, and performances are based on speculative studies that mix archival research, field trips, and oral history reports that she uses to access, nourish, and reveal parts of the past that were previously thought to be lost. Refusing the linear organization of time and instead understanding the past as part of the present, Motta creates works that reorient memories and construct new narratives. Reflecting on notions of diaspora, belonging, and identification she reconfigures Afro-Atlantic relations in her own ways, positioning herself as the author of her own history. Blurring the boundaries between what is known and what is imagined, Motta’s works demonstrate how envisioning new pasts can free us from old narratives and manifest new futures.
Video produced by Do Rio Filmes exclusively for PIPA 2022:
Located in the Gamboa neighborhood, Rio de Janeiro – founded in 2016. A space for training, work and coexistence managed collectively by a group of artists, curators and researchers. In addition to functioning as a proper atelier, the A.S. promotes workshops, exhibitions, fairs for independent publications, film clubs and musical performances – establishing itself as an Autonomous Cultural Center. It also produces Água Sanitária, a revolutionary homemade beer that promotes culture.
Among the workshop/atelier practices, the group highlights drawing, woodworking, sculpture and installations. Architectural thinking, as well as its practices, are common among Atelier members. Through workshops, exhibitions and artistic residencies, they establish networks with other artists and researchers and the neighborhood community. Among the main collective activities of the Atelier, there are A Roda de Samba dos Amigos Compositores do Bezerra da Silva, the Salão Vermelho de Artes Degeneradas (2019 e 2022), CINEMAMATA and Artistic Residencies.
Video produced by Do Rio Filmes exclusively for PIPA 2022:
Charles Lessa (1993) is a visual artist. Lives and works in Crato Ce. Artistic work is where he plays and creates fictions with figurative painting, fabulating characters that are, according to him, “convulsively beautiful and mockers”. He investigates the aesthetics of popular art in dialogue with contemporary art, in the invention of narratives, claiming a new childhood in adulthood. There is also a strong graphic appeal in Charles’ images – in the arrangement of elements and in the use of color – in addition to an erotic layer that is often unusual and humorous.
Video produced by Do Rio Filmes exclusively for PIPA 2022:
Desali has a degree in Fine Arts from Escola Guignard (UEMG). He participated in the exhibitions: “Enciclopédia Negra” at the Pinacoteca de São Paulo; exhibition “Carolina Maria de Jesus: Um Brasil para os brasileiros”, at the Instituto Moreira Salles; “Sertão”, Panorama 36 at MAM, Bolsa pampulha at MAP and 32 edition of the Salão Arte Pará and Salão Itajaí. He has been part of residencies, exhibitions, group and private exhibitions in Brazil and abroad. His work has been acquired by the São Paulo Cultural Center (CCSP), and his works are part of the collection “Arte da Cidade”, the collection of the Pampulha Museum of Art (MAP), and the collection of the Pinacoteca de São Paulo. Creator of the Piolho Nababo Collective, which has been in Belo Horizonte for ten years, he travels through multiple languages, including graffiti, photography, video, and urban intervention, promoting the contact between the margin and the center, questioning the traditional artistic institutions and their colonialism, contaminating these spaces with the streets.
Video produced by Do Rio Filmes exclusively for PIPA 2022:
Sy Gomes is a black travesti born in Eusébio, in the Coaçu neighbourhood, a name which means Big Leaf. Moved by life, she settled in the city of Fortaleza and currently resides there. In this territory, she has been making art for at least 5 years. Music, performance, installation, ritualistic creation, cultural and musical production, design and landscaping are among her works/research. She holds a degree in History from the Federal University of Ceará – UFC.
Video produced by Do Rio Filmes exclusively for PIPA 2022:
Emerson, 30, is indigenous and two spirits (trans). Graduated in Biology, with a Masters Degree in Ecology, she works as a visual artist, art educator and researcher. Lives in Manaus (AM), industrial territory in the middle of the Forest, where she transforms herself to become Uýra, a Walking Tree. Having her body as medium, she tells stories from different Natures through photo performance. From the City-Forest landscape, she’s interested in alive systems and its violations, and also in memory and indigenous diasporas. She was part of the Arte Pará Salon (2019), the exhibition for the EDP das Artes Awards, Tomie Ohtake (2020), 34a Bienal de São Paulo (2021), and exhibitions at institutions from Austria, Italy, San Francisco, Netherlands, France and in 2022 will take part at Manisfesta! (nomade biennial from Europe), and will present two solo shows, at Museu de Arte do Rio – MAR and Museu de Arte Moderna – MAM Rio.
Video produced by Do Rio Filmes exclusively for PIPA 2022:
Cribb graduated from the Superior School of Industrial Design at UERJ, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Daughter of a Haitian father and a Brazilian mother, she has been creating in recent years digital and visual narratives that permeate techniques such as creation of 3D avatars, filters in augmented reality and immersive environments, using the digital environment as a means to explain her investigations and current issues covered by her subconscious. Vitória investigates the behaviours and developments of new visual/social technologies and transposes its thinking through the immateriality present in the digital.
In 2021, “@ilusion”, a film and digital installation by the artist, was mentioned and gained prominence in reviews such as XR panel from The Art Newspaper.
Among the exhibitions, the following stand out: The Silence of Tired Tongues (Framer Framed, Amsterdam, 2022); Oh I Love Brazilian Women (Apexart, New York, 2022); Segue em Anexo (National Museum of Republic, Brasília, 2022); Futuração (Galeria Aymoré, Rio de Janeiro, 2021); Disembodied Behaviors (Bitforms gallery, New York and Newart city Platform, online, 2020), The Brazil That I Want (Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, online, 2020), Beginning of Century (Jaqueline Martins Gallery, São Paulo, 2019).
Video produced by Do Rio Filmes exclusively for PIPA 2022:
Every week, we will post new pages and video interviews. Stay with us!