The Demise of Everything Good (Lydgalleriet)

2024

Three channel 4K-video installation (16 min), 5-channel audio, metal structure (4 x 3 x 2,5m), 2x towels (9m and 1,8m), dumbbells, skateboard, HD video installation with headphones (3:50 min), t-shirts and long sleeve t-shirts

Documentation photos: Sasha Azanova

The first iteration of The Demise of Everything Good premiered as part of the group show The Matrix of Power at Nitja senter for samtidskunst, Lillestrøm, in February 2024. 

For this solo exhibition at Lydgalleriet, Bergen, Kaeto Sweeney and I expanded the project by adding new works: a 9-meter towel with the sentence When did it become so problematic not to want to hurt? printed on it; dumbbells; the skateboard used by Beccy on the shooting of the film in 2023; the open call video that Beccy submitted when she applied for the role in the film; and t-shirts/long sleeve t-shirts for sale during the exhibition period.

The t-shirts and long sleeve t-shirts are part of Kaeto and mine’s alternative donation list of foreign organisations and causes. In Norway, as a taxpayer or business owner, you can claim deductions for donations to certain foreign voluntary organisations and religious and belief-based communities working with care and health, child and youth-oriented work in arts, culture and sports, protection of human rights, disaster relief, animal protection – all which have been approved in advance by the Norwegian Tax Administration. In their list, 5 out of the 9 selected organisations are directly linked to Christian missions (source Skatteetaten, § 6-50 of the Tax Act).

This is our alternative list:

1 - AlQaws – queer organisation in Palestine.

2 - Callen-Lorde – New York based LGBTQ+ healthcare organisation, providing affordable/free healthcare.

3 - Mermaids UK – supports trans, non-binary and gender-diverse children, young people and their families.

4 - FESK – skateboarding organisation from Ceará (Nayara ’s home state in Brazil).

5 - Sponsored sessions for Beccy’s skateboarding school for FLINTA* people.

6 - Islamic Relief Worldwide – Sudan Emergency Appeal.

7 - Malala Fund – fund that helps girls around the world go to school.

8 - Campaign from Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement (MST) to support the victims of the floods in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.

9 - MADRE – international feminist organisation support system for grassroots organisations working with women and girls in over 40 countries.

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List of works:

The Demise of Everything Good
3 channel 4K-video installation, 5-channel audio
16:00

When did it become so problematic not to want to hurt?
Towels, 9m

Beccy
HD video installation with headphones
03:50

THE FUTURE IS FEMALE
T-shirts and Long sleeve T-shirts for sale – 300kr
100% of the proceeds were divided equally and went towards our alternative donation list of foreign organisations and causes


Curator: Julie Lillelien Porter

Gallery assistant and photographer/videographer: Sasha Azanova

Gallery assistant: Karina Sletten

Technicians: Tine Adler, Tobias Kvendseth and Moana LeMeur

The Demise of Everything Good is supported by Kulturdirektoratet, Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond, Kunstsentrene i Norge, Bergen Senter for Elektronisk Kunst (BEK) and Wrap.

The Green and Yellow are Ours as Well

2024

Wall vinyl (315x150cm), 2x prints (70x100cm each), 15x A4 prints, 2x banners (100x200cm and 325x100cm), 1x A0 print, 70x hand fans, 3x Brazilian football shirts, 3x prints (40x70cm each), film (9 min), rainbow flag, hammock hook

Documentation photos: Nayara Leite

The Green and Yellow are Ours as Well, my solo exhibition at Visningsrommet USF, contains a continuation to my long-term research about the effects of Bolsonarismo in Brazil regarding the LGBTQ+ community. All the works – some old, some new – refer to this research, and they also bring hopes and wishes for the future of my homeland.

“The revolution is black, trans, poor, working class and peripheral”, Erika Hilton said in an interview in 2020 when she was elected councillor to the Municipal Chamber of São Paulo. She received the most votes for any councillor in the country, and she was the first black travesti to be elected for this position. Two years later, she was elected to the National Congress of Brazil. Hilton is one of the politicians who have been fighting hard against the rise of the extreme right in the country, which started when Jair Bolsonaro was elected president in 2018.

After four years with Bolsonaro as its president, Brazil is still recovering from his destructive government. He didn’t get re-elected in 2022, but his supporters are still continuing what he preached: hate speech, violent acts, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny and racism. As an example, thousands of his supporters vandalised the National Congress in January 2023 because they didn’t accept him losing the elections. In September last year, a far-right politician belonging to Bolsonaro’s party proposed a ban on same-sex marriage (it’s been allowed since 2011).

Bolsonaro left a polarised country, with the extreme right feeling more powerful than ever. Luckily, we have people like Erika Hilton who are there to fight for a better, more inclusive and tolerant Brazil.

And, who knows, maybe in a few years the revolution will finally take place and we will have a black travesti as our president.

This exhibition wouldn’t have been made possible without the incredible support of Tine Adler, Sofie Hviid Vinther, Kaeto Sweeney and Kiyoshi Yamamoto. The Green and Yellow are Ours as Well received support from Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond.

I Have Never Experienced Loss in a Way that You Have (exhibition)

2024

4x2m banner, window vinyl

Documentation photos: Guttorm Glomsås and Nayara Leite

Within the first week of my 3-month residency at the Nordic Artists’ Centre Dale, Israel started the most brutal series of attacks against Gaza. Tucked away in a small Norwegian village, resting between mountains and fjords, the contrast between the peaceful surroundings and the horrifying images in the news created a certain kind of restlessness inside me. My plans for the residency changed right away. I couldn’t focus on anything else other than Palestine.

So, I started writing poems about Palestine, about its people, about my own realisation of the horrors, complexities and duration of the current genocide. These poems are the way I found to process my research and to educate myself. They are my response to the atrocities I’ve been seeing every day through my phone and computer screens. They are my way of showing solidarity with the Palestinian people. Fifteen of these poems made it into the publication I Have Never Experienced Loss in a Way that You Have, which also gives the title to this exhibition at Nye Bokboden, Bergen.

For the exhibition, I chose one poem from the publication and printed an excerpt of it on vinyl, which was placed on the windows of the gallery. Inside the gallery, I showed a banner with the final sentence from the same poem, which says We are lending our voices for a future where Palestine is finally free.

To activate the exhibition, I organised three events, the first one being the launch of the publication. I read some of the poems and had a discussion with the audience about the genocide in Gaza. The second event was a protest signs workshop, where the participants made several protest signs pro-Palestine using cardboard and markers. The event was free to attend, and all the material was covered. The signs could then be used at the demonstrations in Bergen. The third and final event, the Nomadic Embassy of Palestine, was made in collaboration with local artists Imad Alwahibi, Peppi Reenkola and Margrethe Smedegaard. For three days, Nye Bokboden was transformed into a Palestinian Embassy, where everyone was invited to join and “become” a Palestinian. We offered bread with hummus, which they could stamp with the sentence “We are all Palestinians”.

I Have Never Experienced Loss in a Way that You Have has been supported by Bergen Kommune.

Prints for Palestine

2023

Risograph prints, various dimensions

Documentation photos: Nayara Leite

Risograph prints made in Dale, Norway, as part of a residency at the Nordic Artists’ Centre Dale combined with a risograph residency organised by Pamflett. These prints were my response to the current genocide in Gaza, which started on October 7th 2023.

All the money from the sales of these prints is donated directly to families trying to evacuate from Gaza.

Finding hope in a dumpster fire

2024

Performance (30 min)

Documentation photos: Daniela Toma / Open Out

The world is a dumpster fire. The pain and suffering witnessed every day makes the world seem hopeless and unnecessarily cruel. In my marriage with artist Tine Adler, hopelessness takes centre stage in our everyday life: in dinner conversations, Instagram posts shared with each other, the last words whispered before falling asleep.

Finding hope in a dumpster fire is a performative presentation and conversation between Tine and myself, where we hope to end this unconstructive loop of despair and pessimism we have been trapped in for so long. It’s a dive into our different upbringings in Brazil and Denmark. How the communities, religions and folklore we grew up in shaped our ideas of what trust and hope embodies, and how these ideas reinforced a notion of non-belonging. From joining a campaign to canonise Brazil's first queer saint to searching for gender fluidity in Norse Mythology, we share our different journeys to redefine the elements of the pasts to meet in a more hopeful shared present.

This work premiered at the Open Out Festival, Tromsø.