Women & Video Art: Political Praxes of Memory

Lotty Rosenfeld • Tatiana Gaviola • Gloria Camiruaga • C.A.D.A. • Sonia Andrade • Letícia Parente

A Co-presentation with
Sur Gallery + VIVO Media Arts

Live from Oct 21-Nov 4, 2023

Co-curated by Sarah Shamash & Tamara Toledo

This online program of video art from Brazilian and Chilean video pioneers Sonia Andrade, Letícia Parente, C.A.D.A., Gloria Camiruaga, Tatiana Gaviola, and Lotty Rosenfeld, reveals overlapping thematic tropes with the exhibition at Sur Gallery entitled Diaspora Dialogues: Archiving the Familiar. A concern for women’s bodies as subjects of repression and resistance; a critique of state violence and oppression; and, a concern for developing semiotic feminist languages through video art is evidenced in these historic works.

Video as a viable tool for art production became accessible in Latin America at different times depending on the country of origin. The first generation of video artists from Brazil and Chile in the 70s and 80s demonstrates the adoption of video as a form with radical political potential. Significantly, the confluence of video technology and feminism in the 1970s was critical in shaping the artistic responses to the historical moment these video pioneers lived through. The artists presented in Women & Video Art: Political Praxes of Memory developed semiotic and conceptual languages to critique patriarchal dictatorships while also using this moving image technology as a form of documenting the social and political oppression within their nation states. Because video was a new technology in 1970s-80s Latin America, the radical imaginations and political critiques of these artists managed to go under the radar of repressive censorship laws. The advent of the portapak, or portable video camera recorder, allowed for an embodied medium that could be used in both public and private realms. Women & Video Art: Political Praxes of Memory makes visible the important contributions of Latin American women video pioneers in developing media languages that underscored feminist liberation in a time of extreme repression.

Palabra de Mujer

Lotty Rosenfeld

1986 • Chile • 9.14 mins

A documentary of the 1986 International Women's Day march in Santiago, where women protested for the return to democracy and free elections in Chile. The tape captures the resiliency and strength of women who defy systems of oppression.

Milla De Cruces Sobre El Pavimento / A Mile of Crosses on the Road

Lotty Rosenfeld

1979 • Chile • 4.43 mins

This video documentation captures the art action performed by the artist who alters street signs of Santiago, Chile during a brutal dictatorship.

Yo no le tengo miedo a nada /
I am Not Afraid of Anything

Tatiana Gaviola

1984 • Chile • 5.56 mins

An affirmation of fearlessness during a time of systemic violence and oppression.

Popsicles

Gloria Camiruaga

1984 • Chile • 4.44 mins

A close-up of girls repeatedly praying “Heavenly Father” while eating popsicles to reach a toy soldier inserted in the treat.

Para no morir de hambre

C.A.D.A

1979 • Chile • 5.25 mins

One of several documents of C.A.D.A.’s “Art Actions”. Milk is distributed in a marginal area; 30 liters of milk are sealed in an art gallery; a speech is given in front of an international organization; an article is published in a magazine of the opposition expressing the shortages of staples in Chile.

Sem Título [fios]

Sonia Andrade

1977 • Brazil • 2.29 mins

The artist uses thread to progressively wrap her face in a performative gesture that self-inflicts facial distortion through a painful binding that prohibits self-expression during dictatorship era Brazil.

Sem Tïtulo [feijão]

Sonia Andrade

1975 • Brazil • 2.29 mins

The banality of a typical Brazilian domestic scene is disrupted in this performative video that uses feijão (black beans) to create a new ritual, a discordant image of woman, television, and home.

Preparação I

Letícia Parente

1975 • Brazil • 3.31 mins

The artist arrives at the bathroom mirror and gets ready to leave in a daily ritual that inverts her own image prohibiting sight and speech, highlighting the ominous confluence of femininity, state censorship, and patriarchy.

Marca Registrada

Letícia Parente

1975 • Brazil • 10.30 mins

Sewing on the sole of the foot with a needle and a black thread, the artist embroiders the words “MADE IN BRASIL” materializing notions of branding and belonging in a time of state violence and oppression.