Event

Maria Thereza Alves

Wednesday 4 February 2009 at 7 pm

As part of the conference cycle In Situ & In Vivo –  Entretiens sur l’art 
Pascal Beausse receives Maria Thereza Alves

Relations between art and ecology constitute the foundations of Maria Thereza Alves’s investigations. A Brazilian artist now living in Europe, she has developed different investigative procedures on contemporary realities located very precisely on human, social, and environmental levels. Approaching artistic activity as a research on life, working on what one doesn’t know yet involve following an unpredictable path. During such a journey, which consists in experiencing the world, encounters guide the artist. The question of identity is always at the heart of her preoccupations.

Politically active, the founder of the Brazilian Partido Verdo (green party) in São Paulo, and a former representative of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (“the workers’ party”), Maria Thereza Alves has developed a critique of the enslavement of native peoples and the violence inflicted on them by institutions and the wealthy as they deprived them of land and of the means to survive.

Alves has turned back the investigative methods of ethnography and anthropology against the western cultures that formalized them. The aberrations of Eurocentrism are highlighted on the basis of a critique of imperialism – its history and consequences as well as its remanence.

For the past several years Alves has been working on the project Seeds of Change with the tools of archeology in order to bring out a secret history and geography of plants. In several ports, her research has led her to draw a cognitive cartography of globalization through the seeds transported in the ballast after its removal from merchant ships. Bringing these “dormant seeds” back to life after several hundred years (in some cases), Maria Thereza Alves recounts an alternative history of migrations.

During the conversation, she will more particularly focus on her recent projects, Seeds of Change and Wake in Guangzhou.

Maria Thereza Alves recently took part in the Manifesta in Trentino and in the Guangzhou Biennale.

An exhibit will be devoted to her work at the Michel Rein gallery in Paris, February 7 – 28.

Maria Thereza Alves, «Chico Mendes, Los Anti-Heroes y La Ley de Gravedad», Courtesy Galerie Michel Rein
Maria Thereza Alves, «Chico Mendes, Los Anti-Heroes y La Ley de Gravedad», Courtesy Galerie Michel Rein
Speakers

Maria Thereza Alves

Date
Time
19h00
Location
Fondation Pernod Ricard
1 cours Paul Ricard
75008 Paris
Free entrance
Free admission, without reservation
Maria Thereza Alves. «It rained and the snakes didn't come». Courtesy Galerie Michel Rein
Maria Thereza Alves. «It rained and the snakes didn't come». Courtesy Galerie Michel Rein
Maria Thereza Alves. «L'identique». Courtesy Galerie Michel Rein
Maria Thereza Alves. «L'identique». Courtesy Galerie Michel Rein
Maria Thereza Alves. «Nowhere». Courtesy Galerie Michel Rein
Maria Thereza Alves. «Nowhere». Courtesy Galerie Michel Rein
Maria Thereza Alves. «Minus one dimension: Zinneke Reflections». Courtesy Galerie Michel Rein
Maria Thereza Alves. «Minus one dimension: Zinneke Reflections». Courtesy Galerie Michel Rein
Maria Thereza Alves. «Seeds of Change: Marseille». Courtesy Galerie Michel Rein
Maria Thereza Alves. «Seeds of Change: Marseille». Courtesy Galerie Michel Rein
Maria Thereza Alves. «Wake: Berlin». Courtesy Galerie Michel Rein
Maria Thereza Alves. «Wake: Berlin». Courtesy Galerie Michel Rein
Maria Thereza Alves. «Wake in Guangzhou: The History of the Earth». Courtesy Galerie Michel Rein
Maria Thereza Alves. «Wake in Guangzhou: The History of the Earth». Courtesy Galerie Michel Rein
Maria Thereza Alves, «Chico Mendes, Los Anti-Heroes y La Ley de Gravedad», Courtesy Galerie Michel Rein
Maria Thereza Alves, «Chico Mendes, Los Anti-Heroes y La Ley de Gravedad», Courtesy Galerie Michel Rein