We Are One! walk/march from the Constitutional Hill to the Dril Hall on 23 June 2012 to address migration, xenophobia and access to health care for all who live in South Africa. Photograph: Reneilwe Mathibe

Contributors

Revista Mesa 3^rd Issue

Alex Hetherington is a visual artist, curator and writer working with film, who works under the title Modern Edinburgh Film School. Modern Edinburgh Film School stages his practice as an artist with curating, producing new collaborative projects, publications, and critical writing. These work together on themes of learning about film and its ideas, moving image artists and their films, sculpture and poetry, and new expressions, founded in discussion.

Anthony Schrag was born in Zimbabwe and grew up in the Middle East, the UK and Canada. Originally he obtained a degree in Creative Writing in Canada, where his first poetry book was published, but forwent the solitary writer’s life for an interdisciplinary artist’s fare and in 2005 completed his M.F.A. in Glasgow. He is currently based somewhere in Scotland. Working site specifically and in a participatory manner, he has had residencies/exhibited/performed in Hungary, Canada, USA, Mexico, China, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Germany, and Iceland as well as across the UK. Anthony is currently completing a Ph.D. at Newcastle University exploring conflict, policy and socially engaged practices. For more information, please visit his impossibly outdated website.

Barbara Szaniecki graduated in Visual Communications from the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, and received her MA and Ph.D. in Design from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. She has extensive practical experience in the field of graphic design and is currently co-editor of the magazines Lugar Comum (media studies, communication and culture), Re-Dobra and Multitudes. Professor and researcher at the Industrial School of Design at Universidade de Estado de Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), her research interests focus on the relationships between graphic design (in particular the poster) and political concepts like the multitude, power, protest, and representation. She is part of the Nomadic University Network and the author of Estetico Multidão (Aesthetics of the Multitude), 2007 and Disforme Contemporâneo e Design Encarnado: Outros Monstros Possíveis (Formless and Contemporary Design Incarnate: Other Possible Monsters), 2014.

Bia Jabor is an artist and art educator. She received her BA in Education with specialization in Fine Arts from FAAP (Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado) in São Paulo. Since 2008 she has been Manager of Art and Education at Casa Daros, Rio de Janeiro. From 2004 to 2008 she was director of the Division of Art Education at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Niterói and prior to that she was a member of their education team. In 2007 she coordinated the educational program of the Telecommunications Museum and cultural space Oi Futuro in Rio de Janeiro. She has more than 15 years experience in the area of museum education including coordinating projects for temporary exhibitions, developing educational research and materials for teachers, and mediation training.

Brian Hartley works across the disciplines of visual art, design and performance, reflecting an ongoing interest in the relationship between visual art, photography, theatre, and performance. This work takes many forms from stage design to performance and documentation, both on and off stage. Through his company stillmotion Brian creates collaborative performance events involving dance, design and participation, often presented for a multi-generational audience. Since 2009, stillmotion has been developing an interactive dance work for young audiences called “We Dance, wee groove” at festivals in the UK and internationally. He is currently an Associate Artist with Imaginate and through this has taken part in Fresh Tracks Europe, a European network of venues and festivals supporting the development of dance for young audiences. In working with children he also served as a consultant with Stirling Council, developing photographic skills and creative practice amongst nursery and early years’ settings between 2007 and 2014, culminating in writing for a publication on early childhood education to be published in 2015. In summer 2014, he presented “Scotch Hoppers”, an interactive installation and performance inspired by children’s street games, as part of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games Cultural Programme. www.stillmotion.co.uk

Chloé Le Prunennec is a visual artist, writer, filmmaker, and tattoo artist. Born in Paris in 1991, she graduated in Animation in 2012 and soon after traveled to South America (including Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay) and began writing a travel blog called Les Chiens du Mexique Noirs. She came to Brazil in 2014 and worked on writing and illustrating the book Estrelas Cadentes, shortly before her first solo exhibition in Florianópolis. She works as a production assistant and tattoo artist at Fox Tattoo studio.

Daniel Leão was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1984. He graduated in Cinema Studies from the Universidade Federal Fluminense in 2013 with a Master’s degree in Social Communication with a focus on the use of sound in the documentary film. Since graduation, he has been working as an independent filmmaker as well as developing sound experiments and audiovisual works with artists such as Ivar Rocha and Mariane Monteiro. He is currently working on his first full-length feature film A felicidade as vezes mora aqui (Happiness sometimes lives here) inspired by an eponymous group exhibition in the Museum of Contemporary Art, Niterói (MAC). Also, over the past year he has been shooting Lo que seja em tu corazón ainda que em cinco minutes and acting as an audiovisual artistic producer for MAC.

Danilo R. Streck received his Doctorate in Education from Rutgers University, USA. Currently he is a visiting scholar at the Latin American Center, UCLA, and at Max Plank Institute for Human Development in Berlin and Professor at the Graduate School of Education of the Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos (Unisinos), Brazil. Recent research projects focus on popular education, Latin American pedagogy, pedagogical mediations in participatory social processes, and participatory research methodologies. He is author of A New Social Contract in a Latin American Educational Context (Palgrave/McMillan) and co-editor of Paulo Freire Encyclopedia (Rowman & Littlefied) as well as editor in chief of the International Journal of Action Research. E-mail: dstreck@unisinos.br or streckdr@gmail.com

Diana Kolker Carneiro da Cunha is an educator and member of Colectivo E, active in Rio de Janeiro and Porto Alegre. She develops transdisciplinary projects, blurring the boundaries between art, education, history, etc. (especially etc.). In partnership with Institute MESA and Casa Daros, she recently co-coordinated the Contemporary Laboratory: Proposals and Discoveries of What Art is (or can be), an experimental program developed for and with young artists. She has a degree in history from PUC (Rio Grande de Sul) and a graduate diploma in the pedagogy of art from Universidade Federal de Rio Grande de Sul (UFRGS). She collaborated on the program design and supervision of the mediator training for the 9th Mercosul Biennial and on previous editions of the biennial, developing courses for teachers, supervising mediators and as a mediator. She coordinated the Education Action program of the Brazilian Indigenous Centuries project, contributing to the development of the Training Course for Indigenous Mediators, creation of educational materials and Teachers Forum. She has taught history and art in public and private schools in Porto Alegre.

Emma Balkind is an AHRC Ph.D. Candidate at Glasgow School of Art. Estovers, a public-facing research project, will engage with other artists to consider what the basic similarities are between different evocations of the Commons. Asking “If the concept of the Commons / the Common / of Commonality is entirely mutable or slippery then what is this ghost of an idea of Commonality that is retained in its reiteration?” Balkind is also currently producing “Sick Sick Sick: The Books of Ornery Women,” a project on female authorship and radical subjectivity in partnership with Laura Edbrook and MAP magazine. Her writing has been commissioned for publication most recently by Galerija Galženica, Zagreb and YYZ Artists’ Outlet, Toronto.

Eugenio Valdés Figueroa (Havana, 1963) is a curator, critic and art historian. Amongst various different projects and position Valdés has been co-curator of several Havana biennials as well as a special on-site researcher of contemporary African art. Professor at the College of Arts and Letters at the University of Havana, he has taught courses and workshops in the Superior Institute of Art in Havana (ISA). As a researcher of Latin American art, he has written extensively on the subject and contributed to various art magazines such as Atlantic International, Third Text, Parachute, and Cuban Art, among others. Founder and former director of the Art and Education program at Casa Daros Latinamerica, Rio de Janeiro, Valdés has organized numerous programs and exhibitions. He is currently Director of CIFO (Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation) in Miami.

Felipe Moreno received a graduate degree in Communications from the Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano of Bogotá (UJTL) in Bogotá, Colombia, and a Master’s Degree in Visual Languages at the School of Fine Arts at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). His theoretical research / practice in contemporary photography explores questions of representation and examines photography in an expanded field. He has participated in two editions of the International Festival of Photography Photo Rio. In Colombia he is part of the experimental video collective Akrofobia. Formerly a Producer of Art Content at Casa Daros in Rio de Janeiro, he now works as an independent researcher and photographer.

Hans K Clausen lives in Edinburgh where he has a studio at the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop. After a career in social work and counseling he completed a Foundation Diploma at Leith School of Art followed by a B.A. hons in Sculpture at Edinburgh College of Art, graduating in 2012. In the same year he won the Signature he was selected as one of the emerging artists of 2013 by two London publications, Catlin Art Guide and Glass Magazine. Hans currently holds two artist residencies: Yorkhill Hospital for GoMA in Glasgow and a Creative Scotland art and science project “Nil by Mouth”.

Jessica Gogan is an independent curator and educator and director of Instituto MESA, Rio de Janeiro. Recent projects include: Publicness in Art – a series of critical seminars and workshops in three distinct Brazilian regions; Contemporary Laboratory: Proposals and Discoveries of What Art Is (Or Could Be) exploring themes of art, pedagogy and politics for young artists with the Latin American art institution Casa Daros in collaboration with Coletivo E; Experimental Nucleus of Education & Art at the Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro, evaluation of the pedagogic project of the 8th Mercosul Biennial, Porto Alegre, Brazil and the exhibition and residency by Brazilian artist José Rufino at The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh USA, where Gogan was formerly director of education and curator of special projects. She is also currently a Ph.D. candidate in Art History at the University of Pittsburgh where her research focuses on socially engaged art, curatorship and pedagogy in Brazilian institutional contexts.

José Rufino began his artistic journey via poetry and visual poetry then transitioned to mail art, drawings and paintings in the 1980s. Dichotomous dialogues between memory / forgetfulness, opulence / decadence and oppressor / oppressed shape his work. Among his most significant works are: Cartas de Areia (Sand Letters) a series of drawings on envelopes and letters on old family correspondence; Vociferatio, Lacrymatio and Respiratio, installations produced in the 1990s; Laceratio and Murmuratio presented in 3^rd Mercosul Biennial and Museum Vale; Plasmatio produced with furniture and documents related to Brazilian activists that went missing during the military repression presented in various institutions (25th São Paulo Biennial, Museum of Modern Art Aloisio Magalhães, Oscar Niemeyer Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art in Niteroi, Brazil Embassy in Berlin); Divortium aquarum, (Usina Cultural Energisa Centro Cultural Banco do Brazil, Rio de Janeiro) and Ulysses, in Casa França, Brazil.

Katie Bruce is a Producer Curator at the Gallery of Modern Art, GoMA, Glasgow, where she has worked for the past 12 years. Recent exhibitions and programs have explored play, health and participatory artist practice. She is the curator of Atelier Public #2 and YoHoArt and is interested in the expanded field of curatorial practice and institutional models. Some of these lines of inquiry are documented on her blog.

Leandro Almeida is a cultural producer graduating from Federal Fluminense University (UFF). He studied filmmaking at the School of Cinema Darcy Ribeiro, the international Academy of film and UFF and is now completing a media course and extension education. He is a videographer and editor and works as a social educator in the field, having taught training courses for young communicators in cultural centers, NGOs and public schools. He coordinates the film club Cineclube Cineolho that has been running at Museum of Contemporary Art in Niterói (MAC) since 2007. He worked in the art education department at MAC from 2002-2009 where he coordinated and produced programs, projects and events in sociocultural fields with a focus on the communities surrounding the museum and on implementing the Community Action Module at MAC in the favela community of Morro do Palácio. Between 2010 and 2013 he served as the Audiovisual Secretariat of the Ministry of Culture through the Programmer Brazil. Currently, he coordinates the Museum Forum program at MAC Niterói and is a managing partner of the video and film production company Interim Permanent Cultural Productions.

Leonardo Guelman is a university professor, writer and researcher in art and culture. He graduated with a degree in Architecture and Urbanism from the Federal Fluminense University (UFF) in 1986, received a Masters in Philosophy from the State University of Rio de Janeiro in 1997 with the dissertation: Univvverrsso Gentileza: the genesis of a modern myth and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the UFF, 2011, with the thesis: Writing from the Sertão: constructed images and detours paradigmatic works from Sertão. He is an adjunct professor at UFF. Founder and coordinator of the project “Projeto Rio com Gentileza” [Rio with Kindness] that promoted two restoration projects (in 2000 and 2010) of the work of the Prophet Gentileza wall murals in Rio de Janeiro. He was coordinator of the undergraduate program in Cultural Production at UFF (1997-2000), director of the Arts Center UFF (2001-2006) and curator of Teatro Raul Cortez (2007-2008). He was previously director of the Institute for Art and Media UFF and is now director of UFF Arts Center and a professor in the department of art at UFF and the Graduate Program in Culture and Territorialities, with a research focus on the relationship between narrative, imagery and territory.

Luiz Guilherme Vergara is a professor in the Department of Art at the Federal Fluminense University (UFF) and teaches in the graduate programs: Studies in Contemporary Arts and Culture and Territoriality. As curator/director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Niteroi (MAC) 2005-2008 he was responsible for curating several exhibitions focusing on the dialogue between the architecture of Oscar Niemeyer and contemporary artistic practices, such as Poetics of the Infinite (2005) and Lygia Clark: Poetic Shelter (MAC, 2006) as well as the outreach initiative Art and Environmental Action (MAC, 1998 -) working with the favela community Morro do Palácio. In 2013, on returning to MAC, he curated exhibitions of the Brazilian artists Alexandre Dacosta, Suzana Queiroga, and Carlos Vergara as well as co-curating the exhibition Joseph Beuys: Res-Publica: Conclamation for A Global Alternative. His research interests focus on the interface between art, museums and society and he is co-editor of Revista MESA.

Mônica Hoff is an artist and researcher. She has a BA in Visual Art specializing in the Pedagogy of Art and a Masters in History, Theory and Art Criticism both from the Universidade Federal de Rio Grande de Sul (UFRGS). From 2006 through February 2014 she coordinated the pedagogic Project of the Mercosul Biennial, acting as “ground curator” and coordinator of the 9th Mercosul Biennial’s pedagogic initiative Cloud Formations in 2013. She also co-edited the publications Pedagogy in an Expanded Field with Pablo Helguera and A Nuvem e Manual para Curiosos with Sofía Hernandez Chong Cuy.

Mysterious Creatures Dance Fusion (MCDF) is an interdisciplinary art group that was formed in 2011 by youth members of the Keleketla! Library After School Program, Johanesburgh, South Africa. The organization works with the youth, mainly school learners, using art as one of its mediums of education and information. Mysterious Creatures Dance Fusion was formed to continue what the founding members had learned; to grow and expand in dance and to find collaborations independent of facilitators; to explore creative movement in both physical theatre and outside. Our mission is to create a platform for young and aspiring artists to collaborate and put into practice their skills while learning and growing from each other:

• Nqobile Khumalo: Dance is a free and easy language, both for communication and expression. It allows me to use everyday gestures to communicate without the use of words. Its meaning is beyond that of physical movements; it can embody all the other emotions far better than words at times, simply because it is a visual language and the only lie it can tell is the message itself, if not portrayed from one’s true emotions.
• Neo Doctor Ncube: It takes an athlete to dance but an artist to be a dancer. In dance there is vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through me into action. And because there is only one me, this expression is unique and it’s hard to be blocked because when it is blocked it will be difficult for it to exist through any other medium. It will be lost. Dance is a language in art that defines who I am. This is how I communicate with my people; a few might understand and a few might not get what I try to portray. Lastly I quote: “Dance is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire”. Remember that!
• Wesley Hlongwane started dance in 2008. He has worked and performed with different artists who have pushed him and introduced to him to different techniques and skills. He started working with Keleketla! Library in 2010 with Nqobile Khumalo, Doctor Neo Ncube, Emma Ramashala, and Lerato Makopo under the guidance of Michael Shelton Machaya on a piece called “Movement Mandela.” From there he worked with The Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative – an ongoing collaboration – as part of MCDF. Other collaborators include Nyaniso Dzedze, Wits School of Arts Fine Arts students (Ruru Rusike, Grace Mmabatho Mokalapa and Daniella Dagnin) and recently Lindiwe Matshikiza on her “Donkey Child” interdisciplinary production.
• Andile Nzuza: I overstand [understand] dance as a talking spirit and respect its presence since it evokes my emotions to engage on another level of consciousness and wisdom of the cosmic energy. I was born as an artist who sings, dances, acts, and even does gymnastics. I started professionally in Afrofusion and Contemporary dance when I was attending the company called Moving Into Dance Moiphatong in the open class program, obtaining a certificate for the year 2013. As a spiritual individual I dance for my ancestors to pass me enlightenment and wisdom.
• Invention Tshibollo Ramaisa: Dance is so important to me because I can tell many stories by just using my own body. Every movement has its one meaning. I can dance different types of dance: Afrofusion, Pantsula, Hip-hop, and Contemporary. I am a dancer!

¡NoPasaran! is a heterogeneous collective of artists, producers, activists, and filmmakers proposing a new structure for audio visual production that escapes the notice and any form of control over the production of films, since the control and the bureaucracy has grown frightening within the state production concept. So here it does not matter what artists are involved, but as the black blocks is the most important tactical and who are interested in playing it. Importantly, to do a movie in Brazil and release it in cinemas it takes a CPB and a CRT as well ratings and a series of bureaucracies that prevent any means of production focused on artistic quality without dealing with the major producers. No wonder the quality of Brazilian films and themes have suffered, worsening in greater proportions. The ¡NoPasaran! tactic proposes to make movies out of this model tax and since art can not be persecuted and censored by the agents governamentais. Hoje this collective has directors, artists, entrepreneurs, costume designers, writers, activists, and anyone who is doing audiovisual material in the country for a completely independent platform. So, more than a collective, ¡NoPasaran! is a proposition to peacefully break these regulatory structures and copyright works that force the artist to turn a kind of professional notices and an art bureaucrat, as a kind of peaceful protest, but forcefully showing how the scheme works for all governments and their flawed structure. Being that ¡proposition NoPasaran! is not a group, it can not be identified or prosecuted; he proposes an authorial art cinema, anarchist ideology and reflects this in its format.

Nuno Sacramento was born in Maputo, Mozambique and now lives and works in Aberdeenshire where he is Director of the Scottish Sculpture Workshop in Lumsden. He is a graduate of the deAppel curatorial training programme and also completed a doctorate in Visual Arts at the School of Media Arts and Imaging, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee. He is committed to issues of expediency of small arts organizations, land and ruralities, skills–sharing and collaboration, 21st century Arts and Crafts, and the commons. He is involved in research, project curation, writing, and lecturing.

Peter Pál Pelbart is a professor of philosophy at PUC São Paulo. He has written extensively on madness, time, subjectivity, and biopolitics. He published O Tempo não-reconciliado, Vida Capital and more recently O avesso do niilismo: cartografia do esgotamento (available in English as Cartography of Exhaustion: Nihilism Inside Out), among others. He has also translated various works by Gilles Deleuze. He is a member of the theatre group Cia Theatra Ueinzz and co-editor of n-1 editions.

Rafa Silveira [Rafa Éis] is a visual artist, educator, tattoo artist, etc. He is of black, indigenous and European heritage. He lives and works between Porto Alegre and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and is currently studying for a masters degree in Contemporary Artistic Processes from the Universidade Estadual de Rio de Janeiro (UERJ). He has collaborated on the design and development of pedagogical projects and actions with various art institutions. He is a founding member of Coletivo E, an independent group of educator-artists and works as an artist for the cultural project/center Projeto Casa in Porto Alegre and received a Funarte (Brazilian National Art Foundation) Award for Black Art in 2013.

Rangoato Hlasane (b.1981 – Polokwane) is a cultural worker, writer, illustrator, DJ, and educator based in Johannesburg, South Africa. He holds a masters degree (cum laude) from the University of Johannesburg’s Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture. He is the co-founder of Keleketla! Library, an independent and interdisciplinary library based in Joubert Park, Johannesburg. Rangoato recently joined the faculty staff of the Wits School of Arts and Wits School of Education. His design and illustration work includes the public campaign for the one-day only newspaper titled The Chronic (2011) by Chimurenga. His independent publication, CCTV surveys current practice in Johannesburg and elsewhere, borrowing from the Medu Art Ensemble Newsletters (1979-1984) ethos and aesthetics. Rangoato was invited together with Keleketla! Library co-founder Malose Malahlela to guest author a Goethe Institut-commissioned report on art/s education in Africa, recently published by Kenya-based Contact Zones titled “Creating Spaces” with Nicola Laure Al-Samarai. As Mma Tseleng, he DJs and performs sonic lectures to expand his research into the social, political and economic significance of South African music, with Kwaito at the centre of this lifelong engagement. His research and writing into South African music histories are published in several platforms and formats.

Roberta Condeixa is an educator and art researcher. She currently coordinates the Art is Education program at Casa Daros, Rio de Janeiro and is studying for her Master’s Degree in Contemporary Art Studies at the Federal University Fluminense (UFF) focusing on collaborative art practices in Latin America, mapping artists that promote the inclusion of biographies within their work as a body of multiple voices. She develops research and projects that use art as a language of power and change in social structures. She has worked with diverse art and education institutions in Rio de Janeiro, such as Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC) Niterói, Oi Futuro, and CCBB (Cultural Center of the Bank of Brazil) as well as initiating independent projects. While working at MAC’s Department of Art Education she developed youth projects with neighborhood schools and the favela Morro do Palácio and participated in an international exchange with The Andy Warhol Museum, USA.

Rodrigo Nunes is a lecturer in modern and contemporary philosophy at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio). He is the author of Organisation of the Organisationless: Collective Action After Networks (Londres: Mute/PML Books) and recently edited a dossier on the political situation in Brazil after the 2013 protests for Les Temps Modernes. As a curator, he organized the event “Stronger Are The Powers of the People”: Politics, Poetics and Popular Education in Brazilian Cinema, 1962-1979, presented in London and Berlin.

Sarah Barr is the Young People’s Service Coordinator at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children (Yorkhill) Glasgow. She delivers and develops creative programs for the young people who stay in the hospital and facilitates a volunteer program to support the work of staff and artists. She has been at this position for six years and previously worked at Pollok House in Glasgow as the National Trust for Scotland Education Officer. Sarah is currently studying part-time for an M.A. in Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, focusing on Learning and Visitor Studies in Museums.

t s Beall is an artist working with digital media and in the public realm. She is currently the recipient of a Collaborative Doctoral Award working with the Riverside Museum of Transport and Travel, based at University of Glasgow Theatre Studies Department. Her practice-based research investigates the use of creative events and contemporary performance practices to map new strategies for visitor engagement within museums and heritage institutions. Her work has two distinct strands – both attempt to answer (and pose) questions about landscape and placemaking. The digital side does this through considering distant (disembodied) landscapes, using found footage and reconnaissance imagery. www.tsbeall.com Recent public artworks and events consider how public spaces are engaged with by individuals and institutions, and how decisions regarding development and regeneration influence that engagement with disparate publics.