Overview
Revista MESA
Revista MESA is a bilingual (English and Portuguese) digital periodical published biannually by Instituto MESA. The magazine explores the complex interchanges between art and society with a particular focus on contemporary ethical and aesthetic paradigms and practices that traverse the fields of art, curatorship and education. Featuring critical articles, “think piece” contributions, Brazilian and international case studies, videos, interviews and photographic essays, MESA presents critical reflections on art and society that draw on the experience of professionals working in the field–artists, curators, educators, researchers, and activists–and on research from a broad range of disciplines: art history, Latin American studies, museum studies, education, anthropology, sociology, geography, and philosophy. With a national and international circulation MESA seeks to be a catalyst and conduit for dialogue exploring contemporary critical and creative practices in their distinct contexts, formats and situations. Revista MESA editors: Jessica Gogan and Luiz Guilherme Vergara with guest editors, contributing authors and collaborators on each issue.
Nº 1. Territórios e Práticas em Processo
February 2014
Territories are defined by their practices; and in turn, practices are embodied in their territorializations–moments of instantiation amidst the daily flux. The material gathered for this first edition explores this complex and mobile territory within the areas of contemporary art, curatorship and education. Critic and scholar Tania Rivera was invited to contribute a “think piece” to accompany this edition exploring these shifting territories and practices, in which she explores the poetic resonance of art in the world and the importance of a curatorial, critical and pedagogical practice of dispersion and dissemination.
In two International case studies German curator Claudia Zeiske describes the town as venue practice of Deveron Arts. Portuguese curator Nuno Sacramento, born in Mozambique, provokes a political discussion about the production of a new common through his Makers ‘ Meal project that brought together artists and artisans to create a dinner–including the tables, plates and cutlery as well as food. The two projects, both occurring in the northeast of Scotland, speak to the vitality of contemporary art in rural contexts.
Two additional national case studies, explore the public life of art and the experience that art inaugurates as a richly emergent critical and creative field in itself: an edited selection of interviews with curators, artists, participants and educators involved in the geopoetic world of the 8th Biennial of Mercosul, Porto Alegre and essays reflecting on the experiences visiting Ernesto Neto’s The Animal SusPensiveIntheLandGenscape with different audiences.
These contexts also offer new artistic horizons and poetic practices re-imagining and mining practices of caring and healing such as the collaborative process between Brazilian artist José Rufino and Alzheimer patients–part of an exhibition and an artist residency at The Andy Warhol Museum in the US–discussed in an article in this issue.
In addition to these artistic and curatorial shifts a video interview with Jailson de Silva e Souza, director of the Favela Observatory in Rio de Janeiro, shows the importance of adopting new critical lenses and ways of thinking about the city as a creative and pedagogic territory. In another, yet entirely different popular context, the photographic essay by Leonardo Guelman, which captures The House of Miracles, shows the vitality of the folk religious world of people in northeastern Brazil.
Collaborators/Contributors No.1: Anita Sobar, Bernardo Zabalaga, Bianca Bernardo, Claudia Zeiske, Ernesto Neto, Imagens de Povo, Jailson de Souza e Silva, Jessica Gogan, José Rufino, Leandro Almeida, Leonardo Guelman, Luiz Guilherme Vergara, Nuno Sacramento, 8ª Bienal do Mercosul, Tania Rivera, e Virgínia Kastrup.
Collaborators/Contributors No.1
The first four issues of MESA magazine are funded by the Prêmio Procultura de Estímulo às Artes Visuais 2010 Funarte/MinC (Brazilian Ministry of Culture National Art Founcation Pro-cultural Incentive Prize for the Visual Arts).
