São Paulo, Brazil, 1984.
Lives and works in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Cecilia Cavalieri is a visual artist, writer, cosmotransfeminist researcher & a good enough mother. Brazilian, she was born in the suburbs of São Paulo, was raised in the countryside of Santa Catarina and now she lives in downtown Rio de Janeiro. She holds a Master of Arts degree [PPGArtes/UERJ] and a PhD in Visual Languages [PPGAV/UFRJ] with a year at the Sociology and Political Philosophy Lab [Sophiapol] of Université Paris-Nanterre.
In the speculative practice between animalities and extra-human maternities, she intertwines teats, stomachs, bladders, milks, bacteria, spirits of extinct animals, milk ducts, and counter-colonial devices of philosophical discourse to compose books, videos, games, cheeses, spatial interventions, epistemological stumbles and other conceptual apparatuses.
Post-lactant of the Phalluscene, she articulates the untamed collective of women-mothers in state of art and is a member of species [nucleus of speculative anthropology]. She is winner of the Prix Appert de la Jeune Création [Paris, 2019] with the body of work “Via Lactea – a cosmopoetic speculation”. Alongside Daniel Steegman-Mangranée she curated Station 15 of Laboratoire Espace Cerveau [IAC lnstitut d’art contemporain Villeurbanne, 2019]. She participated in the residencies: Active cartography of care and creation of networks [Cristina Ribas / Despina, Rio, 2018], Mothers in Arts [Mondrian Fonds / Csilla Klenyánszki / Goleb, Amsterdam, 2017], Becoming an image [Manuel Vason / Instituto Hilda Hilst, Campinas, 2014], Abducted futures vs anti-hijacking of dreams [Fabiane Borges / Capacete, 2016] and Autocenter [Alexandra Leykauf / Berlin, 2014]. She has done continuing education at Aarea [monitoring in digital art, 2021], at Escola Sem Sítio [Poetic Immersions, 2018]. She also published the artist books La Femme [Paris: Psémata, 2019], The Abyss of The Other [London: A3 Press, 2019] and Precarious Gardens [Rio: Z Edições, 2015]. She has participated in exhibitions in Brazil, Germany, Lebanon, England, the Netherlands, France, Bolivia, Peru, Portugal and Norway, with highlights including participation in Abre Alas [Gentil Carioca, 2019], the 18th Cerveira Biennial [Vila Nova de Cerveira, 2015], the group show Re: Production [Goleb. Amsterdam, 2017] and GAS [Anita Schwartz Gallery, 2022]. It may not look it, but I’m kinda funny!
“Excerpt from “Poetics of milk, politics of sky; Voice over: Tamara Jones”, 2021. Duration 0’31”
“ Via lactea – a cosmopoetic speculation”, 2019. Duração 3’33”
“ This is what a mother looks like”, 2017. Duração 20’41”
“The Ground of The Language”, 2021. Duração 0’30”
“Breathing exercise ”, 2022. Duração 0’12”
“Hellish Song – 3 scenes ”, 2019. Duração 0’54”
“Hollow”, 2014. Duração 10’19”
