VideoSynthesis  [2012]

Over and through a screen formed by endemic vegetation of the Atlantic Forest, better known as “old man’s beard” (Tillandsias usneoides), ancestral – and still contemporary – faces of Pindorama (the true indigenous name of Brazil) were projected. Re-appropriated from international newsreels and documentaries, in the western colonial fiction of the “Brazilian territory”, the semblances, traces and body-paintings of our native peoples return symbiotically to nature, as pure luminous energy, permeating the tessitura created by the plant. Tilandsias are a type of vegetation that spontaneously spreads over trees and urban furniture in many Brazilian cities, making green resistance possible in the gaps of concrete, by reconnecting forest areas distanced by urban invasion. The red of the urucum body paint is reinforced in the images, this being one of the colors that best provides photosynthesis through artificial light. The plant “canvas” absorbs the light from the projector, allowing for reduced photosynthesis at night, as well as providing texture, relief, and life to the images and the importance of making themselves visible in today’s environmental and counter-colonial movements.

by Bromelio/ Bruno Rezende and Moana Mayall

Exhibition
Imagina Rio/ Plataforma Vide Urbe
at EAV/ School of Visual Arts of Parque Lage, Rio, 2012