Disfigured flashes illuminate the city. Streets, walkways, walls, strange landscapes. Everyday noises fade and echo in thoughts. More flashes. More noises. Rumors. The city moves. Society moves. There are screams, explosions, messages are exchanged. In this poetics, fulminating transactions open up.
Insurgencies is a virtual exhibition of posters by Juliana Lira, a multidisciplinary artist and sociologist who researches issues involving food, territory, animal causes and Latin American identity. The connection between these topics, between these social insurgencies, was a direct theme of her studies and references, especially in South American typographies and ornaments. More than political posters, these images carry collective demands from Brazil and the world in pandemic and pre-pandemic times. The issues between animal causes, identity and territory are directly connected and are the result of colonization processes experienced by a large part of Latin America. The format of the posters represents precisely forms of direct expression of popular revolts and manifestos; images on walls that often go unnoticed by our eyes, but which are noisy messages, revolting screams that call for social change.
Paloma Cassari
Curator
virtual gallery
Artist´s statement
Juliana Lira, 27, has a degree in Sociology from the State University of Campinas UNICAMP, during her graduation she was divided between her work with the Critical Theory study group of the philosophy department and her work as a photographer for the independent cultural scene in São Paulo. In 2018, after a long car journey through South America, the artist decided to abandon her master’s project and moved to Argentina, Patagonia. The idea was to abandon theory and live out her continent in practice, feel its smells, flavors and pains carried by this territory. It was precisely from this experience that Juliana left books aside and began to explore the world of visual arts. The artist’s work is crossed by decolonial, territorial, cultural and political issues, bringing social science activism into artistic production.
