Arthur Bispo do Rosário. Como é que eu devo construir um muro nos fundos da minha casa [How Should I Build a Wall at the Back of My House] undated. Concrete, wood and glass. 11 x 50 cm. Col. Museu Bispo do Rosário Arte Contemporânea.

A Stay at the Colônia Juliano Moreira

Daniel Murgel

End of 2013: I receive an invitation from the curators Fernanda Pequeno and Martha Mestre to participate in the collective exhibition Play at Bispo do Rosário Contemporary Art Museum (mBrac). The museum is situated in the Colônia Juliano Moreira (known as “Colônia”) – a mental health complex in a northwestern suburb of Rio de Janeiro. Discussing what work to present, what caught my attention the most was the time that the exhibition would be on display: something around six months. The idea of using this time as a fundamental element of the work came up and I proposed that we improvise an artistic residency structure so that I could develop a project by inhabiting that space. The museum then handed over a room, which was converted into a studio, and a dormitory with a bathroom so I could sleep when needed. The studio was situated in the Polo Experimental known as “Polo” – a cultural community center for mental health users and families administered by the museum that includes the Atelier Gaia an art studio/collective also for users.¹ Because of this proximity, I could live and share some flasks of coffee with the artists who work there: Arlindo, Patricia Ruth, Lobão, Clovis, Luiz Carlos and Pedrinho.

 

I wanted to get to know the history of the place – the people who live there or who had passed through it. The most eminent figure being Arthur Bishop do Rosário. Coming into contact with his art, especially in the place that has a collection of more than 800 of his works, was a great privilege. Among the many works I saw, there was one in particular that provoked my curiosity: Como é que eu devo fazer um muro no fundo da minha casa [How Should I Make a Wall in the Back of My House]. A small strip of wood with cement and glass shards, the piece references household amulets – devices that have as their main objective protection from an invasion of property. It is not known if Bispo, in constructing it, was thinking of invasion or evasion.

 

Walking around, before the TransOlympic Highway was constructed, also revealed various territorial idiosyncrasies.² A few street corners turned toward the woods and a stream, then shifted suddenly – “Planned Street 1, 2, 3 …” Street names that suggest that soon there would be no more brook or woods. On the other side was a dirt road that advanced through the forest wide enough to let a car pass. At the end of this stretch, before the mountain bikers’ trail, cars parked so that their drivers and dates could make out – now the TransOlympic Highway crosses this stretch brutally imposing speed. Before arriving at the lovers’ parking lot, it was possible to go off to the left and, via a short trail, arrive at the field of Montreal, the Colônia’s soccer team, in front of the community center. It may seem romantic, but there was a lot of trash and dead animals. The ruins are still there too: starting from the entrance and the aqueduct right to the bandstand, historic mansions, senzalas (old plantation slave quarters), everything falling down, reflecting the neglect of those who prefer to forget history. After the bandstand, the road circled back to the “planned streets” section, where there was already a group of residents that shared the neighborhood with parts of the psychiatric care complex, among them the de-activated and mythical Pavilion 10 –where Bispo and other male patients were incarcerated.

Daniel Murgel. Arriving in the Colônia. Filmed October 4th, 2017 arriving in the Colônia Juliano Moreira for the International Encounter Care as Method # 2.

I had come from some recent earth-building experiences, so I wanted to build with the earth of the Colônia, an earth that was impregnated with stories and would soon be covered by layers of asphalt and concrete brought by the rough and ready urbanization that the government usually promotes. So I designed a small house with adobe walls, made of that earth, grooved with reinforced cement so that the ruins of those walls would reveal the traces of its elements – oppressive walls crushed into dust, the ground becoming wall becoming ground again. When we first broke ground, I realized that the work would not be easy, the earth, compacted for decades, was almost impenetrable. I remembered that “progress” also brings machinery and tools. I thought about asking for a digger. It would save hours of work, not to mention effort. Friends of the museum arranged for a pickup truck and we promptly went to the municipal staff and asked for help and machinery. With two movements and less than five minutes the digger got all the land needed for the project and filled the pickup truck. We then proceeded to the Polo, and unloaded the earth there, just after the corner of the field of Montreal so we could begin to transform it into bricks. But, by myself, I would not be able to handle so much work, and the idea of organizing a group of volunteers came up. Some participants from the Escola Livre de Artes [Free School of Arts – a project that the museum administers in the Colônia] volunteered, in addition to some other more spontaneous and sporadic participation. We started working as a team.

 

We met a few times a week to make bricks. The intense physical work was a lot of effort and soon I realized that a certain discouragement was taking over. I realized the need to professionalize the work process and so I decided to raise funds so that everyone would be properly rewarded for the effort. We obtained the funds through a grant from IPHAN (Brazilian Institute for National and Artistic Patrimony). So the project went ahead, now with a consolidated team. We erected a small adobe house, a giant sand castle, there at the whim of time – a planned ruin.

 

Daniel Murgel. Como fazer as paredes da minha casa. Artistic residency on the occasion of the exhibition Play curated by Marta Mestre and Fernanda Pequeno, mBrac, 2013. Photos: Daniel Murgel

There was also the experience of the group workshop at the Polo. Before the adobe, we took some ceramic bricks and invited the people who were there to adopt a brick. Subsequently, after a few comments, each one projected onto his or her brick a feeling and for most, certainly, it was one of oppression. After this brief ceremony each one threw his brick on the ground and smashed it.

We had some celebratory barbecues. On one of those occasions Arlindo and I took care of the fire. That day Arlindo confessed to me that at some point in his past he had worked grilling barbecues.³

 

***

 

Daniel Murgel
Is an artist, and lives and works in Rio de Janeiro. He has a BA in Fine Art from Escola de Belas Artes/Universidade Federal de Rio de Janeiro. Recent exhibitions include: Labirinto de cruzetas (MUBE, curadoria Cauê Alves, 2017), Arquitetura de superposição (Bogotá, curated by Valentina Guitierrez, 2016), Máquina de Chover no Molhado (CCBNB, Sousa, PB/Juazeiro do Norte, CE, 2010). He has participated in various collective exhibition such as Experimentando espaços (MCB, curated by Agnaldo Farias, 2015) and Amor e ódio à Lygia Clark (Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Varsóvia, curated by Magda Kardasz, 2014). He was artist in residence at Colônia Juliano Moreira in the context of the exhibition Play (mBrac) curated by Fernanda Pequeno and Marta Mestre, 2014.
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¹ [Editor’s Note E.N.: Administered by mBrac, the Polo Experimental is an cultural community center that via the idea of togetherness, integrates cultural actions in the Colônia in an old remodeled Pavilion transformed to house the activities of: Escola Livre de Artes (Free School of the Arts – ELA); Casa B (Home B – artistic residency); Atelier Gaia; the income generation project Art and Garden Company and the leisure program Pedra Branca (White Stone.)]

² [E.N.: The TransOlympic Avenue was constructed for the Olympics and Paralympic Games of 2016. Its construction caused the destruction of 200,000m² of Atlantic Forest at the limits of the State Park of Pedra Branca, the second largest urban forest in the world. It cost about 270 million dollars and in a violent and arbitrary way divided the territory of Colônia Juliano Moreira into two parts. Under the avenue, today, a small tunnel is the only link between mBrac and the Polo Experimental.]

³ [E.N.: This episode was one of the few times Arlindo talked about his past. Daniel returned to the Colônia again only on October 4, 2017, when he was invited to participate in the activities of the International Encounter: Care as Method # 2. On that day the artist reunited with Arlindo filming his performance Tresformance. This video, also edited by Daniel, presents Arlindo’s work and is featured in the Interventions section of this magazine: http://institutomesa.org/revistamesa/edicoes/5/portfolio/arlindo-o-artista-en/?lang=en]