Project information

submitted by
Suelen Calonga

Co-Authors
Suelen Calonga, Kamai Freire

Mentors
Prof. Danica Dakic, Ina Weise, Vanessa Brazeau

Faculty:
Art and Design

Degree programme:
Public Art and New Artistic Strategies (english) (Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.))

Type of project presentation
– Other –

Semester
Winter semester 2018/19

• Freifläche 4 / area 4 (Hof Hauptgebäude)

attractive to children

Links
https://www.facebook.com/weimarl…

Project description

A new country that, in a street block party format, addresses decolonization through joyful catharsis. Employing a humorous interplay between layers of meanings, this Republic emerges as a hybrid between German and Brazilian references. The artist draws from the history of performative and participatory arts in the public sphere as well from her country’s rich music and dance heritage. Carnival is presented as a Brazilian technology for political discussion, and treatment of collective trauma. In reference to the figure of the “malandro” or “malandra” – a street-smart individual that improvises solutions by adopting out-of-the regulation procedures – and the Weimarer Republik, the project advocates that the ancestor afro-brazilian heritage way of embodied knowledge should be shared in a broader context.

Conceived within the MFA Public Art and New Artistic Strategies and the Imaginary Bauhaus Museum exhibition at Schiller Museum, the launch of the country was during the Bauhaus Parade. The performative action happened with the collaboration of students from the Hoschule für Music Franz Linz and the Bauhaus University.

For Summaery 2019, the performance happened with a large traditional Brazilian samba repertoire and a short procession around the Bauhaus Main Building on the Sunday, a festive closing of the event.