You Are Seeing Things (Estás vendo coisas) Bárbara Wagner & Benjamin de Búrca Brazil 2017 18 mins
UK Premiere
Thursday 21st September, 7.30pm The Maltings Henry Travers Studio
Berwick New Cinema: Surge Channel
“It is all a dream” she sings, “a hallucination. You are seeing things… estás vendo coisas!” In Estás vendo coisas (You Are Seeing Things), two protagonists of the ‘tecno brega’ music scene stage a musical in which they appear as the stars. Tecno brega is the name of a music style from the north of Brazil: the music is produced and distributed at low cost and without any regard for copyright law. Music consumers assert themselves as producers, passive is transformed into active. The region characterised by poverty and restructuring has acquired a new and sexy self-confidence. Parties are a part of the distribution process, music videos are another. The pictorial world of the videos, which are largely shot in immediate living environments, is characterised by kitsch texts and depict unattainable dream worlds.
Trained as a journalist and photographer Brazilian artist Bárbara Wagner understands how media is implicated in manipulating perceptions, often creating historical myths and stereotypes. Since 2005, she has independently produced photographic series and publications on the representation of tradition, both in Brazil and abroad. The German born, Irish artist Benjamin de Búrca has a practice in the arts since 2000 where painting, photography and video are equally important in his work. Working in collaboration since 2011, they are interested in the space documentary and art both share. Their more recent investigations concentrate on collective practices and traditional rituals specifically manifested in the body of youths living in the peripheries of Brazil’s northeast which lose their connotations of symbolic resistance to become products of the tourism and entertainment industry. Wagner and de Burca participated in the 33rd Panorama de Arte Brasileira (São Paulo), 36th EVA International (Limerick), 32nd São Paulo Biennial and 5th Skulptur Projekte Münster. They live and work in Recife, Brazil. Selected Filmography: ByeBye Deutschland! (2017), Estás vendo coisas / You are seeing things (2017), Faz que vai / Set to go (2016), Cinema Casino (2013)
Bárbara Wagner & Benjamin de Búrca are also showing Bye Bye Deutschland! Eine Lebensmelodie in exhibition in The Barrels Ale House. See page 102
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