HOSTING ARTISTS FROM OUR FIRST TEN YEARS

In September 2001, Sacatar hosted its first artists. To celebrate twenty years in operation, during June and July of 2022 we held a session for former Fellows who had come to Sacatar during our first ten years. We also invited to this special session the artist Pierre David, director of the MolySabata artist residency program in Sablons, France. We met Pierre when he came to Bahia in 2009 as an artist in residence at the Museu de Arte Moderna as part of the Year of France in Brazil.

The main goal of my project was to explore forests in Itaparica. I collected a lot of reference material, took great photographs of the forests, made a large-scale ecological installation, and partially completed a painting. I appreciated the interaction with other international artists and the community as well as the support staff. I also have a better understanding of the role of the Dutch West Indian Company in Itaparica and its financial ties with the East Indian Company (VOC) which played an important role in the colonisation of Africa and the slave trade.

My intentions were simple and few: to reconnect with women I met in 2011 (accomplished in the main); attend a Candomblé ceremony or two (I attended one and, wonderfully, an Egun ceremony as well); try my hand at cyanotype (mission accomplished). Bahia is the source of my work here, so having it affect me is the point. During Open Studios, a number of the women of Itaparica whom I have portrayed in my artwork—or, in the case of two women who had recently died, their heirs—came to receive vinyl prints of the portraits I had made in 2011. It was very moving to see the effect that ownership of their drawn images had on them; perhaps even more so when it was a print of their mother or sister who had recently passed. And it was deeply humbling to hear them speak about this.

J Michael Walker

I am beginning a series of drawing of birds in the shambles of empire, specifically in relation to documents and ornamentation in the halls of power. My time here allowed me to sort through some ideas and start some imagery to build on. I am using some Brazilian birds of prey in the drawings. I made videos/audio recordings of bird song in the early mornings which I hope to use in an installation of the drawings. Sacatar provides an extraordinary experience to slow down, to appreciate the world (nature) from a different perspective.

I worked on a long essay about the period when, at 18, just as I was in the process of coming out as gay, I went to live with an Amish family in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. A I started the essay (always one of the toughest parts of the process: getting past the first blank page!) and made significant progress, writing much more per day than I normally do. Bahia didn’t specifically play into what I was writing, but the immersive and fascinating syncretic religious/spiritual feeling on the island did help inspire my thoughts about religion, community, belonging vs. alienation, that are thematically central to my essay.

During my time at Sacatar, I worked on my novel. I was editing and moving through another draft of a project I’ve been writing for eight years. I also worked on poems as Bahia has always opened me to new ways of seeing and making.

I worked on the draft of my novel about rape, coming here with the idea that it was too dismal… which it was for the first two weeks. Then I saw the light, and it opened up with the spiritual element of healing and connection. Yes, I accomplished more than I could have hoped for.

My project was to create a series of Still Lifes using only objects, fruits, and vegetables found at Sacatar. During my residency, I did eight ink drawings on paper, 40 x 50cm. Back in France, I will make versions in dry point on gold leaf. This series will be shown in an exhibition in 2023 alongside eleven Still Lifes done at Moly-Sabata (ed: the residency program where Pierre is director) since 2022. In this manner, it will be a portrait of two residency programs.

My plan was to create a series of works about Itaparica’s nature, its diversity and beauty. It will be a collection of miniatures painted with egg tempera on double sided panels. During my residency time I did more than I planned. It was a very fruitful time!

Last summer, I stayed at Sacatar Foundation on a small island in Brazil. I woke up every morning before sunrise to meditate on the beach, wanting to feel the endless sky and sea with my whole body. As the sun rose, I would enter the silent sea and become one with the seawater. I picked up a piece of broken shell at my feet and drew a line on the sand, a boundary line that divided the world into here and there. On the morning I drew my first line drawing on the beach, I received news that my mother was in critical condition. I drew lines on the beach every day thinking of my mother until I could book a flight home on short notice. After returning to Japan, I took care of my mother. But one beautiful October morning, my mother drew her last breath peacefully. I was forced to think constantly about boundaries in many ways in the last year.