Paulo Tavares

Paulo Tavares is a Brazilian architect and urbanist based in Quito/London. His work is concerned with the relations between conflict and space as they intersect within the multi-scalar arrangements of cities, territories and ecologies. Grounded on research-based methodologies and commitment to field-work, Tavares’s practice combines design, media-based cartographies and writing as interconnected modalities of reading contemporary spatial conditions. He is currently developing a project on the violence of planning and the politics of ecology in Amazonia at the PhD Programme of the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths, UK.



Fabiane Borges

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Is an artist, psychologist and essayist. Currently she is doing post-doctoral research in Space Culture in Visual Arts at nano/ppgav/eba/ufrj. She works in the intersection between art, technology and subjectivity. Is responsible for the organization of four books about art, internet, hacktivism,  one of the articulators of the technoshamanism network: https://tecnoxamanismo.wordpress.com/blog/

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Ronaldo Lemos

Ronaldo Lemos is a Brazilian academic, lawyer and commentator on intellectual property, technology, and culture.

Lemos is the director of the Institute for Technology & Society of Rio de Janeiro (ITSrio.org), and professor at the Rio de Janeiro State University’s Law School. He is also a partner with the law firm Pereira Neto Macedo, and a board member of various organizations, including the Mozilla Foundation, Accessnow.org, and Stellar. He was nominated a visiting professor of Law, Technology and Policy at Columbia University´s School of International Public Affairs in 2017 and 2018 . He was appointed as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2015. He was appointed in November 2015 as a fellow by Ashoka, a civil society organization founded by Bill Drayton.


Pedro De Niemeyer Cesarino

Pedro de Niemeyer Cesarino é professor do Departamento de Antropologia da Universidade de São Paulo. Publicou recentemente os livros Oniska – poética do xamanismo na Amazônia (Editora Perspectiva, 2011,3o lugar do Prêmio Jabuti de Ciências Humanas), e Quando a Terra deixou de falar – cantos da mitologia marubo(Editora 34, 2013), além de artigos e textos literários. Tem desenvolvido pesquisas sobre etnologia indígena e interfaces entreantropologia, literatura e arte.


Anne Szefer Karlsen

Curator and writer, currently Head of Research for Bergen Assembly (2018-) and Associate Professor of Curatorial Practice at the Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design, University of Bergen (2015-2021). She was Director of Hordaland Art Centre in Bergen, Norway (2008-14).

Postcard from Rio de Janeiro:

“I wake up around 5:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning, roused by a big group of people singing somewhere close by, almost chanting. It is still dark out, and I am in the neighbourhood of Glória in Rio de Janeiro. I learn through «worldtravelguide» that today we will celebrate Santo Antonio – with street markets, food and drinks. As well as couples jumping across bonfires and mock weddings. The same source reveals that this is the first of three saints to be celebrated in June and July – Festa Junina – and that the celebrations are connected to what we in the North know as Midsummer. But across the equator winter is coming. 

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Since I was here in November last year inflation has skyrocketed, electricity is something like 60% more expensive, there is a real possibility of catching dengue fever –  if not the full-fledged version, then certainly what is commonly referred to as ‘baby-dengue’ which confusingly enough also starts with rashes on the chest and arms, intense pain behind the eyes that does not go away until four to seven days later, a dash of high fever and a lack of appetite. The corruption scandal in the semi-public oil company Petrobras doesn’t seem to end, the government has cut the budgets for health and education, and in Rio violence is on the rise. I have learned to distinguish fireworks from gunshots, and I am both happy and scared when passing the drug trafficking bar across the street. Happy because the bar owner and his crew seem to keep the peace in the street, scared because a slice of Brazilian everyday realism can be served up at any time. Museums must cut in their opening hours because they cannot afford the cost of air conditioning, and everyone I meet is complaining about a lack of discourse production in the art. A teacher in the public school system makes just under 2,000 Reais, equivalent to about €350. For parents with high-level education, but no money to put their children through private school, keeping their kids out of public school is a real option, resorting to home schooling and an environment of learning in a network of adults.

I spend every day with a group of 12 artists, curators, educators, writers and producers taking part in the yearlong programme at Capacete: A para-educational initiative with participants from many parts of the world, but also from Brazil. This creates a dynamic in the group where fact is mixed with curiosity.

Wednesdays are particularly busy. This is the day when the students (participants… residents… call them what you like, because no one has really taken the time to name the roles they are inhabiting this year) open the doors and invite the public for presentations, food and drinks. Three weeks ago I was sitting in the hot seat together with my colleague Daniela Castro presenting ’Self Organised, now available in Portuguese’. While we were talking about self-organisation, homemade burgers and the potent mix of lime, sugar and cachaça – distilled sugar cane – was served in the illegal bar. Next week the Wednesday night was a bit louder, resulting in the neighbour throwing eggs with surprising precision at the public and the police showing up. And unlike in Norway, the debate about police carrying firearms is long gone in Brazil: When they knock on the door they come carrying machine guns.

Thursday to Tuesday is typically filled with seminars presented by guests, or small excursions organised by the participants themselves. The week after our seminar we whizz through yet another tunnel, four mountains to the left from Ipanema on the map, and get off at the shopping centre AutoEstrada Lagoa-Barra. We cross the 14-lane motorway and meet the artist Wouter Osterholt, who will guide us around the tower where he and Elke Uitentuis filmed the video work Paraíso Ocupado.

Barra da Tijuca is a neighbourhood in the southwest area of the city. In the 1960s the city planner Lucío Costa drafted a modernist master plan for 76 towers, which were designed by Oscar Niemeyer. Only four towers were realised – one of which collapsed during construction, two are in use today and one is a modern ruin. It was never completed.

The characters in Paraíso Ocupado stage a script in English for a commercial film created to promote the area, geared towards foreign buyers. The artist found the script in the ghost tower, in an ‘archive in chaos’ which still exists today on the second floor. We try not to show too much interest in the two rooms filled with archive folders, blueprints and an old typewriter when we move through the three lower floors, guided by the guard’s flashlight through the dark and spiraling staircases.

Finally, on my last day in Rio I have a chance to go to MAM – Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro. The museum has been between exhibitions the whole time I have been here, but Wednesday last week I went to see designer Manuel Raeder for a sneak preview of the exhibition Marginália 1 – Rogério Duarte. It is, as the title indicates, a survey exhibition of the practice of graphic designer, musician and poet Rogério Duarte. Duarte is the man behind the influential essay ‘Notes on Industrial Design’ (Notas Sobre o Desenho Industrial) from 1965. He also designed and edited several issues of the magazine Movimento 1, which started in 1962 and was seminal for a whole generation. Duarte was thus part of establishing the well-known Tropicália movement. Today he is a man in his late 70s, marked by a long and tumultuous life – largely thanks to the treatment he endured during the military dictatorship in Brazil from 1964 to 1985.

Many on the Norwegian art scene will recognise the name Capacete from a while back when the Office for Contemporary Art Norway offered residencies for artists and curators there. Manuel Raeder and Wouter Osterholt also have links to Capacete.  It was during a residency a few years ago that Osterholt came across the towers and his interest was sparked. And the exhibition at MAM has previously been on display in Europe, then partly produced by Capacete. And like so many guests before and after them, here they are again to continue their projects. There is something about this structure, whose name translates as ‘helmet’, which focuses your senses and directs your gaze. And for a brief moment I also have had the privilege of being part of this – as a stowaway, witness or colleague, my role has been just as ambiguous as everyone else’s – yet it all seems logical. 

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Giseli Vasconcelos

Giseli é produtora cultural e artista interdisciplinar, brasileira, residente nos Estados Unidos. Desenvolve festivais, workshops, exibições e publicações que discutem mídias e tecnologias relacionadas ao cenário brasileiro de arte e ativismo. Seus projetos se caracterizam pela junção de redes colaborativas que se destacam por práticas de mídias táticas e pedagogias radicais relacionadas à cultura de internet. Seus projetos já foram apresentados em Quito (LabSurLab), Amsterdam (N5M), Nova Delhi (Sarai), Viena (MQ21), Berlim (Radical Networks), São Paulo (31st Biennial of São Paulo, Sesc Pompeia), Rio de Janeiro (Capacete, Lastro).

Giseli is a cultural worker and interdisciplinary artist from Brazil based in US. She has been organizing festivals, workshops, exhibitions and publications that discuss media and technology related to the Brazilian scene of art and activism. Most of the projects are collaborative process that highlights practices on tactical media and radical pedagogies related to internet culture. Her work has already been presented in Quito (LabSurLab), Amsterdam (N5M), New Delhi (Sarai), Vienna (MQ21), Berlin (Radical Networks), São Paulo (31st Biennial of São Paulo, Sesc Pompeia), Rio de Janeiro (Capacete, Lastro).

“No retorno ao Brasil, Capacete foi o espaço e agenciamento importante para revisitar minha rede de trabalho, e também para estabelecer novos contatos e aproximação artistas, pensadores e curadores que circulam pelo Brasil. Como integrante do primeiro programa anual Capacete, o espaço residência-escola localizado no Rio de Janeiro nos proporcionou um ambiente informal e descontraído para repensar e debater experiências coletivas, e permitiu uma abertura para aproximar outras redes culturais que trazem questões críticas contundentes ao sistema institucional da arte no Brasil.”


Felix Luna

“La forma en que viví, cambió después de Río de Janeiro. Las dos historias que a continuación presento, quizá como un boceto, hecho inicialmente desde la perspectiva ‘racional’ de un caso de estudio o trabajo de campo, se tornaron al paso de unos meses, en mi forma de habitar y en mi hogar.

A Río de Janeiro, llegué para estudiar su fotografía primitiva llegada de Europa. Me interesaba el trayecto de la plata que de allí se extrajo y que en Francia se procesó en los primeros daguerrotipos. Llegando al lugar, conocí al artista Jorge Emmanuel de Souza quien me cedió una propiedad encontrada en un abandonado litigio y estado, la cual se volvió mi hogar por poco más de un año. El parque al que bajaba a correr en las mañanas, no dejaba de intrigarme, el cual, revisando su Historia, terminó conformando aquí la primera parte del presente trabajo. La segunda, se trata de las huellas que seguí en la casa abandonada, donde habité primeramente solo y después, con varios amigos que le dieran función y uso a aquel espacio. Tales huellas, como se verá a continuación, saltan por diversos intentos de reconstruir ese lugar y bosquejos de proyectos personales, a distintos tiempos, con la mira de señalar una “continuidad”. 

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El interés de reunir estas partes, para provocar cruces entre ellas, y situar éstas, como perspectivas encontradas (la geográfica, histórica, cartográfica-cenital o bien la artística, la subjetiva y la autobiográfica) está en obtener una narrativa que no permanezca “fija” en lo aquí presentado, sino que se rehaga interpretativamente, no sólo en la lectura cruzada (que verá necesaria en estos dos proyectos presentados como “columnas”), también en la forma en que éstas se acercan, en partes como similitudes, contrastes, paralelismos, inicios y fines recurrentes entre ambas. Es desde el acercamiento de Historias y memorias dichas, que apelo al silencio y a la vez a lo relacional, al diálogo, a la posibilidad e imaginación.

Amable lector, puede usted acceder a la fuente de este documento en proceso (también como proceso de intercambio) dirigiéndose a la cuenta de ffelixluna@gmail.com y en el siguiente link https://goo.gl/Ww2pyi donde puede modificar este documento, en cualquiera de sus partes.

Indispensable fue y sigue siendo el apoyo y colaboración de Laure Rocher Luna, Jorge Emmanuel de Souza, Pedro Flores, Manu Flores, Joao de Souza e Silva, Tetsuya Maruyama, Oliver Bulas, Roosivelt Pinheiro, Tanja Baudoin, Joen Vedel, Andrew de Freitas y por supuesto los compañeros Héctor Juárez y Paola Sánchez, todos los residentes de Capacete, como también de los amigos y vecinos de Santa Teresa, el Jairo, Mario, Paulo, Rogeiro, Carol, Clarissa, Elmir, Os Gemeos, que mudaron no sólo la forma en que sería este proyecto, sino la mía propia.” 

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Caroline Valansi

Caroline Valansi é artista visual, professora de fotografia e artes. Sua produção artística transita entre o espaço e a ficção. Suas obras sempre foram enraizadas em seu forte interesse em traços coletivo e histórias íntimas. Caroline utiliza materiais familiares em sua pesquisa: fotos de salas de cinemas, velhos filmes pornográficos, imagens encontradas da internet e suas próprias fotografias e desenhos e, juntos, somam uma ampla exploração de representações da sexualidade feminina contemporânea.

 


Andrew De Freitas

Andrew de Freitas employs a range of mediums in order to explore issues arising from everyday perception and the formation of meaning and feeling. Central to his practice is design and construction, rearrangement of sensory data, experimentation with expanded methods of production and the narrative form.

“One night last year when passing through Berlin I ended up sitting at a big table in some Italian kind of place, with a group of people, all of whom I genuinely enjoy and admire in some way. Which is a nice place to find yourself in. And I think it was Julien Bismuth that said, hey, we should send a selfie to Helmut, presumably to make him jealous or proud – considering that altogether these folks at the table probably represented a strata of at least 15 years capacete, in the sense of capacete being amongst many other things, a diverse and networked constellation of people, who all in some way were connected through Rio de Janeiro. And it wasn’t a milestone or anything particularly remarkable, because for myself and many others there, it’s something that can happen quite often with people you get to know through capacete. And I think Julien took a photo, which I never saw, and we started to talk for while about what it is about capacete that creates this kind of thing. Which I suppose you could call, among many other things, meaningful relationships. There are tonnes of examples of groups, organizations, scenes, cities institutions etc that facilitate friendships and connections, and form also a sense of shared identity. For example, it could be that you lived in a a particular city at a certain time, attended a school or academy, or had some kind of job somewhere, and you have a group of friends or acquaintances that you associate with that time or place, and whom you keep a connection to because of it. But what we were noticing that night in Berlin was that of all the people we know from all those kinds of time and place that we’ve experienced, the relationships that are formed through capacete, often in rio, but not exclusively, tend to be meaningful, and lasting ones. relationships that don’t expire so easily.”


Jonas Delaborde

Artistic director of Nazi Knife, with Hendrik Hegray, FLTMSTPC, Paris (since 2006) / False Flag, with Hendrik Hegray and Stéphane Prigent, FLTMSTPC, Paris (since 2010) / Mentiras, fanzine (since 2013).

My work comprises several different operations, which are distinct but in dialogue.
On the one hand I make images, in series: drawings, mainly, but also collages and photographs. This iconographic work, and the different ways in which it’s elaborated, are infused with permanent sculptural activity. On the other hand, I design publications that are exclusively comprised of images I myself have produced, and others, taken from books or commissioned from guest artists. Their modes of publication vary between self-publication, collaborations and participations in existing collections. But they’re all part of the same movement: that of creating conditions for narration.

 


Oliver Bulas

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Oliver Bulas studied biology before he became an art student at the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg, Germany (2005-2012) and at SFAI in San Francisco, US. He creates ‘constructed situations, in which the visitor immerses. He uses performance and he works in public space. Bulas is wondering if the public space is a place where differences clash and are negotiated. A place where maybe a short flash of social space can incidentally shine up as a utopian moment. He was a postgraduate researcher at Jan Van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, NL. Solo exhibitions (selection): PARSE, New Orleans, US (2016), M.1 Arthur Boskamp Stiftung Hohenlockstedt, GER (2013); [MAKNETE] (Galerie für Landschaftskunst), Hamburg, GER (2012); Halle für Kunst Lüneburg, GER (2012), Kunstverein in Hamburg, GER (2008). Group exhibitions (selection): CAC, Vilnius, LIT (2017), Despina, Rio de Janeiro,BRA (2017), Y Gallery, New York, US (2015), Kunsthaus Hamburg, Hamburg, GER (2013); basis Frankfurt e.V., Frankfurt, GER (2013); Swell Gallery, San Francisco, US (2011); Yvon Lambert Gallery, New York, US (2007); Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris, FR (2003). Currently he is studying computer sciences in Berlin. 

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Jeitinho Brasileiro and the corrosion of bourgeois society
Something disturbing happened to Brazilian society. The social contract has been terminated a long time ago and in present times the dwellers of the city of Rio de Janeiro live in ruins, not only physically but also by means of psychosocial conditions. Brazil is a rich country. But inhabitants are forced combating each other over withhold resources in a karstified social landscape, in which regard corroded ever long since and an invisible majority is fighting for sheer survival. The ostensible beauty and the rehearsed cordiality are common features of the place. They are empty shells dating back to times long gone or they are effortful aspirations to the quality of a postcard image hold up by military brutality. If, however, one encounters them in factuality, one finds them marking a line. By inclusion this boundary excludes without speaking all the more ruthlessly those who find themselves on the other side of the fence.
In this society that deteriorated to become a mediatized spectacle arena, the boundless egoism of the individual (or: of the family interest) rules. ‚Compassion‘, for which some spoke up for, has little meaning here for others.
In this perspective, the „Jeitinho Brasileiro“ seems like the logical consequence, as an ultimate expression of the unsatisfiable appetite of entrepreneurial subjectivity, which finds itself thrown into a constant war with other egos. In the course of this state of war, many agreements and standards have been undermined. It became decisive who is the most cunning to appropriate a situation, who is most calculating at deceiving the other and who can undermine most effectively the remains of certain rules and conventions.
The “Jeitinho Brasileiro” is not a heroic practice of subversion performed by individuals from inferior classes of society (though it can be the case), but it is the norm of an extensive mobilization in a war of each against each. And what is the modus operandi of bourgeois society? The fact that the entire individual, with all his abilities, his emotionality, his spontaneity and his body, must fully commit himself (must throw himself on the market?) ends not only in the unleashing of creativity and social competence. It is much more the case that the individual, with every fiber of his existence, is forced to plunge into the turmoil of war, making himself a tool of survival to such extent that he suffers the loss of his intrinsic, purposeless self.
This is not to say that Brazilian people are absolutely deprived of autonomous individuality or free will. It is rather that the same loss is observed in all societies across the globe, only the shapes this loss takes are different in each place, depending on historical and economic conditions.
Was it the colonial rulers, as introducers and alleged representatives of bourgeois society, who, by conquest, slavery and exploitation, were the first to break any social contract of respect and give economic and political expression to the double standards of bourgeois existence?
And who would claim that it is the Brazilian’s own fault? While importing commodities and labor that would enhance their life, the colonial masters exported in exchange their unsolved contradictions. This way, they managed to appease their own populations (“Look how living standards went up for everyone!” with a specific idea who that „everyone“ is) and without providing any idea how to come closer to solutions against the devastations our societies cause. This necessarily included a concealing of peripheral locations and with them the economic relations. Until this day, the colonial powers work hard to sustain this unequal trade. Meanwhile, colonialism successfully spread bourgeois concepts of subjectivity to cover the surface of the planet, not leaving a blank spot.
Jeitinho Brasileiro is an attitude that seems to emblematize the entrepreneurial subject and its readiness to perceive and snatch any opportunity that opens up to him. In this perspective, the world consists of a collection of opportunities. “The apples are in the trees. You only have to go and grab them.” Even if this view is partly imposed by severe poverty, it also poses an avant-garde to neoliberal flexibilization and the enforced technologies of the self. The pressure to perform is at the core of every „Gambiarra“ (kludge), with “performance” only occasionally having the meaning of a cultural form “that resists dominant norms of social control” (Jon McKenzie in “Perform or Else, 2001), but rather the other meaning of “organizational performance” linked to “efficiencies”. This double meaning of the term “performance” shows remarkable parallels with the double standards of bourgeois subjectivity.
The weathered facades of the 19th-century townhouses in downtown Rio de Janeiro provide a suitable stage for an avant-garde in self-dismantling of bourgeois society. 

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Adeline Lépine

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“From AL to George Maciunas Dear George,

Hope you are fine.

I was thinking about you those last few days as people from my residency are asking to me to answer to three questions. I am sure you had to handle with them also in your life. I think you also probably provoke them, not waiting from others to ask them to you.
If I am looking closely to the questions, for sure, you didn’t really think about the first one. Even if I would be very happy to hear your opinion about what is a helmet for you? And I can bet that you would answered something like: the best thing to protect your head when Ben Patterson is crashing a violin on it.

Anyway, it is probably a good excuse for me to answer to this question as I have now to explain to you what I understood after 5 months of residency of what is CAPACETE for me – for sure, as I can only perceived and then speak from my own subjectivity. CAPACETE is called after the bad pronunciation of the first name of its director, Helmut/Helmet/CAPACETE in Portuguese.

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 A CAPACETE is related to the head and Helmut is, let’s say, a strong-head as the head of CAPACETE. From his head to earth is born a place where in a very specific space and time people are invited most of the time to take part of a flux of ideas, words, actions, experiences, conversations, knowledges, sharing, etc. and to immerse themselves in the Brazilian daily life in general and the carioca one in particular.

CAPACETE’s action is mostly to create, maintain, nourish, an international network which can take part in researches, creations, thoughts, processes connected to the Brazilian territory and social situation.
If I am looking at your manifesto, I see some common points:

So, this year, CAPACETE had invited 13 residents to be part of its immersive, intense, experience. Since the beginning, the idea is somehow to create a “group” – which was not the principle before from what I understood. This “group” has to share some common situations which are somehow participating in the fact of creating a “group”: collective housing for most of the residents; collective seminars and workshops; collective participation in the organisation of CAPACETE’s weekly events.

Indeed, it seems very fast that the question which appeared was to ask how to start as a group (a number of persons or things ranged or considered together as being related in some way) to realize some collective (Relating to or shared by all the members of a group) actions and share collective experiences.

In search with a definition of “collective”, I found yours – it seems that Beuys is quoting you in another letter – I think it is a very good definition. But, how were you dealing with your strong/big/imposant ego, dear George? How people were subscribing and possibly unsubscribing from your collective? Do we need some rules written? How can we be sure to know exactly if we are sharing the same desires, ideals? And how are we deciding what should be collective or individual actions? I just remembered you postcard to Nam June Paik

And wonder if the collective is always bending personal will.

I start to think deeply that groups start to be collective when they decide to be a collective. In other terms, when some people start to join each other, create a group, in order to share actions, energies, thoughts and desires, then they are on the way to be a collective.
Other kind of groups are related by circumstances like teams, classes, employees, etc…. and are most of the time WORKING together in order to reach a goal which is outside each individuals.

In CAPACETE, there is one group, and few appearing collectives. Individualities remain of course. The notions of group, collective and individual are all mixed together here. It is surprising to understand that most of the tensions we have as a group come from finding a way to create a conversation between those three poles: each one seem to be afraid to disappear because of the interaction with the others. But we all know that creating a common project should not exclude the differences. Big egos should survive :). I guess, the group will find a way to create a shared situation where collectives and individuals can follow their paths in and outside this specific group; or how common energy can unite various goals, desires and trajectories.

If not, the Flux could be interrupted.

Ok, I suppose that’s it for tonight. The date of my letter is already wrong now. I spend to much time on watching some Jonas Mekas’ video about Britney Spears…. It is weird to think that you even didn’t have the time to hear about her (among so many others).

Monday, 17th of August 2015

Labanakt George, Adeline 

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Joan Vedel

“It has been a little more than a year since I left Rio de Janeiro and right now I couldn’t be further away. I’m writing this from an old wooden cabin with no electricity and running water, in the middle of the Swedish forests covered in snow. It’s early morning, it’s pitch dark outside and there are no sounds except from my own breathing and this pen moving on the paper. It’s freezing cold and I’m sitting right next to a stove and a pile of firewood, my only light source is a candle gently swaying. There are no other houses close by, no neighbours, no traffic, just trees and trees and frozen lakes and rocks covered in icy moss.

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At this very moment I couldn’t be further away from Capacete in Rua Benjamin Constant, but still it feels so close and so much a part of my body. In fact, not a single day has passed in this year where I haven’t thought of my time in Capacete and Rio, I only need to close my eyes and all the noises and smells come right back to me. It can happen any moment and anywhere, when queuing in the supermarket or driving on my bike through Copenhagen, then suddenly out of nowhere I’m taken back to Benjamin Constant, to Capacete where I lived for a long period and spent most of my time: I hear the sounds of kids playing next door, the dealers shouting in the street outside, a stereo playing music from a neighbour’s window or a singer from the music school practising her scores. I see faces of people, friends and strangers passing by. I remember conversations we have had, meals and presentations in the yard downstairs. I can vaguely feel the hot days and the heavy rains, the moist and the sweat. I think of talks, laughters, discussions and fights; of days imbued with so much joy and high-spirited inspiration.

These sensations also come to me at night when sleeping and they often do. I have had so many weird dreams taken place in or around Capacete, but last night’s dream is the most vivid and I feel like sharing it with you, so please bare with me: Capacete had taken the form of some kind of boat or ferry full of decks and cabins. There was something slightly decadent about it, like a yacht from the 70’s, rusty in some places but still grand in its appearance. Other times it was more like a vessel, a watercraft simply floating onwards. On board we were mostly just a few passengers: me, Helmut, Andrew, the captain and a bunch of wild monkeys (sagüis). But sometimes other people would hop onboard and stay for some time and at one point there was suddenly a massive crowd partying on one of the upper decks. There was no doubt that Helmut owned this boat, but he was not in charge of it. The captain was an older Filipino man and he had a very rowdy way of steering the ship. We were on some unknown Brazilian river, long and curvy and also very narrow at times, almost to the point where we couldn’t pass, so the captain would bump the ship from side to side, forcing us through. Sometimes it felt like being in a rollercoaster in an amusement park, full-speed down a waterfall, other times it felt like we were slowly free-floating and barely moving. I never got the feeling that we knew where we were going, but no one seemed to mind, sailing, floating or river-fating down this endless stream of water. Helmut and Andrew were always in a funny mood and would climb around on the railing of the boat; go on land for days and then return. They always seemed busy with something and it was clear that they were enjoying themselves. And so was I, although I was more of an observer and never understood what we were up to, but still it felt important to be there and I never considered leaving the ship. …

It was a long and lucid dream full of details, one of those dreams that can stay with you for hours and days, perhaps even months. I know my time in Capacete will stay in my body for the rest of my life and I am so grateful for the ride.

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Lucas Sargentelli

“Demorei alguns anos, depois de ser ‘alfabetizado’, para realizar que escrevia a palavra ‘derrepente’ junto e não separado (‘de repente’). Não faz muito tempo, percebi que escrevia a palavra ‘agente’ junto e não separado (‘a gente’). A constatação desses usos errados da língua não sai mais de mim. E o sentido dessas palavras, a cada vez que vou usá-las, desliza entre os possíveis de sua significação. Geralmente vem com prazer usar essas palavras, um prazer subterrâneo, que me lembra que estou escrevendo elas com uma potência outra, uma atenção e invenção que sinto intima. Desde 2011, na urgência e no grupo, venho experimentando com o Capacete.”


Asia Komarova

“I have been running the kitchen of Capacete for the last 3 years, sporadically but always present. In the forwarded maps you have three events that I found the most relevant:

– Exavating the Antropochene

– reading group of the Queer Vegan Manifesto

– the creation of: cozinha en estado de ____________

In all these 3 projects Capacete went thought a big transformation. With the first one the becoming of organic, where we cooked with organic ingredients from local farmers. With the second one, the becoming vegan. And finally with the last one the becoming less centralised, with minor heirachical organisation”


Maricruz Alarcón

Maricruz Alarcón was born in 1983 in Santiago de Chile. Her practice combines interdisciplinary studio work with critical writing about filmmaking. She studied at Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago, Parsons The New School for Design and the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York. Her work has been shown in several exhibitions including at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo and Galería Die Ecke in Santiago; Museo de LaEne in Buenos Aires; and The Kitchen, Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, and TEMP Space in New York.


Hanns Lennart Wiesner

I am currently based in Berlin and organize curatorial projects here and abroad independently.

“Before Capacete I sporadically had contact with the art world already, but had no further interest to work in the arts professionally. That changed after my time in Rio de Janeiro. I organized an exhibition with the support of Helmut in Lidice and started to work as an assistant for Daniel Steegmann Mangrané. The numerous encounters with artists, curators and theorists from all over the world continuously shaped my interest in a more complex and critical approach to understand the world we live in. I remain grateful for the 3 years that I accompanied Capacete’s activities and I am extremely happy for all the dear friends that I made during that time. Obrigado a todxs”