Exhibition "America" | Solo Exhibition by Sallisa Rosa

Supernova Programme presents

Sallisa Rosa | America

 

MAM Rio opens individual exhibition of the visual artist from Goias on 13 November

 

Starting from her personal trajectory, Sallisa uses clay 

to build a body of memory and revere its ancestry

 

The Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro (MAM Rio) opens on 13 November the second exhibition of the project Supernova, which promotes a selection of contemporary artistic production in Brazil. Entitled Americathe individual work of the goiana artist Sallisa Rosa is curated by Beatriz Lemos, Keyna Eleison e Pablo Lafuente. Based on her research on the relations between coloniality, memory and ancestry, the visual artist presents a project specially conceived for the Rio de Janeiro museum.

The artistic proposition of Sallisa Rosa for the new exhibition comes from her personal trajectory: "I am America's granddaughter. My grandmother, my mother's mother, was born on October 12, the day when the Italian Christopher Columbus, sent by the Spanish Crown, invaded this continent, and so they called it America. Made heir to the sad and violent stories, America is immense, strong and full. Grandma America is great just like that, immense, continental".

 

The artist, who participated in MAM Rio's residency program in 2020, says she has been working with earth as an ancestral an ancestral resource: "My practice has to do with image, photography and video, but also with installations and participatory works. I have a research on paths and I have been going a lot in the direction of working with the land. Reflecting on art and territory, I think about the materiality of this element that keeps the memory of everything that has passed and is registered in the soil: people, animals, plants and rocks. I think that art also goes through this demand of reinvention and struggle for territory".

 

The curator Beatriz Lemos reveals that Sallisa started to explore new techniques from the study for the solo exhibition: "She develops a very strong relationship with clay and adobe. One of the central works is Urn of memory (2021), made in ceramics, which materializes the memory of her grandmother, symbolizing her ancestry". Around the piece, the artist has 35 pots from the series Abya Yalaseries, also in ceramics, which allude to her age.

 

Abya Yalain the language of the Guna people, originally from Panama and Colombia, is synonymous with America. It means mature land, living or flourishing land. The expression has been used as a self-designation of various native peoples of the continent in contrast to America. It was first adopted in 1507, but only became established at the end of the 18th century by the Creole elites as they asserted themselves in the independence process, in opposition to the European conquerors.

Lemos points out that a wall painted with an earth solution brings the conviviality with the roots, another triggering element of the imaginary in America. With this theme, the series Souvenirsseries of ink drawings on paper, and Recordação, of prints on fabric, complete the exhibition.

 

In Sallisa's work, the culture of clay begins in the body itself, from the handling: "While I model the clay, it is the clay that models me from the inside, in a movement of cultivation of the internal roots. When you pull out the roots what is left in place is a hole," says Sallisa. "The earth is a magic dust that protects the memories in monuments. It is where you put your foot down to lift your body up. If my heritage is a burden, I live my destiny by instinct and, to honour it, I celebrate memory with my body. 

 

The artist from Goiás says that the word "art" has no translation in almost any indigenous language. Perhaps because traditional peoples do not separate it from life and, therefore, art encompasses a universe of practices that do not necessarily result in objects, but in ritualising life.

 

Sallisa underlines the participation of the Bahian artist Rose Afefé (Varzedo, 1988), whom she invited to the process of creation and editing of America: "Many people were important to me in this project. For the installation, I worked in partnership with her, who was fundamental in the practice with adobe and bioconstruction".

 

Supernova is an ongoing programme of MAM Rio and is sponsored by XP Private.

 

About Sallisa Rosa

 

Sallisa Rosa (Goiânia, GO, 1986) lives in Rio de Janeiro. She works with art as a path from intuitive experiences linked to fiction, territory and nature. In addition, she focuses on images related to themes such as memory and identity, decolonization narratives and strategies for creating the future. He circulates between photography and video, installations and participatory works. Central to her trajectory is the commitment to artistic practices aimed at collective constructions, in the sense of unfolding works in artistic-pedagogical activities, formulating conversations, sharing knowledge.

The artist was nominated for the PIPA Prize 2020 and participated in the SESC Triennial in Sorocaba (2021), in the exhibition Feminist Stories: artists after 2000, at the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo (MASP) (2019), VAIVEM, at the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (CCBB) of Rio de Janeiro (2019), São Paulo (2019) and Belo Horizonte (2020); at the Bienal do Barro, Caruaru (2019), Strategies of the feminine, Farol Santander, Porto Alegre (2019), Bolsa Pampulha 2018/2019, Pampulha Museum of Art, Belo Horizonte (2019) and Dja Guata Porã: Rio de

Indigenous JanuaryMuseum of Art of Rio de Janeiro (MAR) (2017-18). Participated in the MAM 2020 Residencies.

About MAM Rio

 

MAM Rio is a cultural institution constituted as a non-profit civil society of public interest, supported by individuals and companies, which currently has as a strategic partnership the Vale Cultural Institute and as master sponsor the PetraGold Group, a Petrobras and Ternium.

 

Since January 2020, MAM Rio's new management has initiated a process of profound institutional transformation, involving new ideas, new workflows and new attitudes. The actions of this process seek coherence with the museum's original project, guided by the art-education-culture tripod, a movement to enhance the actions already carried out at the museum, in line with its history, and to welcome all who have enjoyed the effervescence of MAM Rio's various spaces, including audiences who have never visited the institution. 

SERVICE:

 

Programme Supernova: Sallisa Rosa | America

 

Opening: 13 November 2021

Closing date: 13 March 2022

 

MAM Rio

End: av. Infante Dom Henrique, 85

Aterro do Flamengo - Rio de Janeiro

Tel: (21) 3883-5600

https://www.mam.rio/

Instagram: @mam.rio

 

Schedule:

Thursdays and Fridays, from 1pm to 6pm

Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays, from 10am to 6pm

 

Tickets:

Suggested contribution, with free access option
Suggested values:
Adults: R$ 20

Children, students and +60: R$ 10 

Online tickets: www.mam.rio/ingressos

 

NOTICE: According to the Municipal Decree 49.335, it is mandatory to present the proof of vaccination against Covid-19 to enter MAM Rio.

 

MAM Rio Sponsors

Strategic partnership: Vale Cultural Institute

Master sponsorship: PetraGold Group, Petrobras and Ternium