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“How to Catch a Flying Uterus” 2024
HD Video, color, sound, 3:49 min

“How to Catch a Flying Uterus” revisits the once prevalent idea of the flying uterus in Western society, which persisted until the early twentieth century and was believed to be the cause of several female pathologies.

The use of found footage from archival materials, film reels, and digital media over a frenzied soundtrack seeks to revive and challenge images belonging to misogynistic narratives in attempts to control and possess female bodies. The overall surreal use of color and sound helps delineate the absurdity in the violence inflicted on women throughout the centuries.

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Para M (To M), 2023
Single channel, video, sound, 11:47 min.

Watch trailer: https://mediakunst.net/professional/#!/artwork/ma-1022470

A woman’s voice passionately addresses the enigmatic figure “M” in a narrative that initially portrays a positive shift as one colonial ruler replaces another. However, the story ultimately exposes the persistent and oppressive nature of the colonial enterprise within an enduring framework.

The initial “M” refers to Maurits in Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen, a seventeenth-century governor sent to Brazil as a representative of the Dutch West Indies Company. Despite the prevailing positive perception of this governmental change and idealized views of Maurits’s presence in Brazil, recent research uncovers the dark legacy of his dictatorship. The letter “M” emerges as a symbol branded on the skin of enslaved Africans under his possession.

Through a creative juxtaposition of images featuring women and reappropriated colonial arte-facts in and around Recife,Brazil —an outpost of Dutch occupation—the essay film intricately weaves a poetic letter. It seeks to discern the potential for the subaltern voice to articulate itself. The film powerfully underscores that, while the articulation of truth may demand time, its revelation remains an inevitable prospect.

Read article on Para M by curator and writer Ive Stevenheydens on Mediakunst.net:

This project was mas possible with the generous support of The Mondriaan Fonds, Amarte Fonds and CBK Zuidoost.

The post Para M appeared first on Patricia Werneck Ribas.

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The Possessed, 2022
Single-channel video, sound, 16:15min

Watch teaser: https://mediakunst.net/professional/#!/artwork/ma-1022040

In The Possessed, Patricia Werneck Ribas alludes to the resilience of the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomble in the face of colonial and modernist imposition. 

The artist juxtaposes fragments of influential texts from European thinkers over footage of practitioners of Candomble carrying out rituals on a deserted Brazilian beach. But they are not invoking demons that horror films and Christianity would have us believe. Candomble arose through a process of syncretism between traditional religions of West Africa, particularly that of the Yoruba, and the prevalent Roman Catholicism in Brazil when it was still a colony of Portugal. 

Brought to Brazil by the Portuguese during the sixteenth through to the nineteenth century, enslaved Africans were taken to plantations where few could speak the same language.  It was in the plantation owners’ own interest to discourage communication – all for the sake of avoiding rebellion. Despite this language barrier, they could still recognize common elements in each other’s belief systems. Thus they attempted to create a sense of community for themselves, separated from their families and displaced unwillingly from one continent to another.

Although Candomblé has always been marginalized by the Roman Catholic church, it has grown in popularity and remains a site of resistance against white Christian European domination.

Read article on The Possessed by curator and writer Ive Stevenheydens on Mediakunst.net

This project was made possible with the generous support of the Mondriaan Fund.

The post The Possessed appeared first on Patricia Werneck Ribas.

This work is also distributed by LIMA

Watch trailer here

©2020 Patricia Werneck Ribas

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This project was made possible with the financial support of the Mondriaan Fund.

Press Release:

Since the 1800s German people have been fascinated with Native Americans. A rough estimate is that 40,000 to 80,000 people, all over the country, participate in ‘powwows’ where they dress up in traditional clothing, dance together and chant. Patricia Werneck Ribas traveled to a little village called Grimma close to Dresden to collect images of these gatherings and to research these phenomena. It may be a surprise to learn that dressing up as indigenous peoples is a thriving subculture in these cold lands. These scenes of German people in full native costume dancing in a circle inside a huge tent have a documentary character. The artist wanted to go beyond looking at the absurdity of white people dressing up as Native Americans, however. We see men and women wearing headdresses made of eagle feathers chanting and stamping their feet while wearing noisy bells on their ankles. In their leather beaded moccasins, fringed patchwork aprons, shiny sequined skirts, they slowly circle the large canvas tent. Patricia Werneck Ribas learned that these chants are carefully researched and the rituals are supposedly ‘authentic’. For some people, these gatherings are seen as cultural appropriation and are controversial. For this artwork, the artist has added something else. She edited a conversation between two tribal women from South America looking at the video images of the Germans slow dancing in their ‘exotic’ costumes. The sound of the Europeans chanting can be heard in the background while the women speak. This unexpected combination is neither critical nor condoning these fascinating get-togethers, just opening up a space to reflect on what it means to be ‘the other’.

The video begins with the camera slowly panning down to the ground, showing us where all plants emerge from. From the start, we are invited to look differently at this lush European landscape.  The Germans wear clothes inspired by the Sioux and Dakota tribes, and these events belong to a revered history following the extensive German colonization in the Americas. Buffalo Bill, an American soldier, and bison hunter toured Europe, performing in shows that displayed cowboy themes and episodes from the frontier and Indian Wars. These shows inspired German children, and then adults, to dress up in indigenous clothing and learn about the different native cultures. Even before the First World War circuses brought over people from the Americas and powwows became much more common in German towns and villages. Now tourism thrives in reservations in the USA, continuing the German fascination with the ‘exotic’ and romantic idea of the native warrior and a culture that has an ‘innocent’ communion with nature.  Stories about the Mid-West, travel diaries, and documentaries about the white people’s colonization of Western states fed into idealistic literature, in particular, narratives of resistance as native societies resisted American dominance.  In addition, when the German film industry was in crisis at the start of the 20^th Century, German ‘cowboy and Indian’ films helped revive the German film industry, which also fed into the Teutonic fascination with the ‘Wild West’ and people from the prairies. 

So, in this video, women from a non-specific tribe heard that some people from the North have affinities with the Indian spirit and organize these powwows in huge tents. Watching this video is as if the two women are also observers of these scenes. Seeing potential in a shared love of nature, they wanted to study the possibilities of contacting the Germans to see if they could be allies in the women’s quest to take over the world, finding solutions to global environmental problems.

This video combines footage of native Germans dancing in a tent with audio and subtitled observations from undisclosed observers. Here, they are viewers, too.  Looking at these images is their ‘first contact’ with Northern Europeans.  The women wondered – will people in the North be willing to abandon their comforts? What would they give up to help save the planet?  The women’s plan is not yet known but there around 40 million indigenous people in Latin America getting ready to organize themselves and investigating the possibilities of working together for a common cause.

In Patricia Werneck Ribas’s video, we don’t see the women, but we hear their voices. Speaking in a mysterious language they say, “Our proposal is unique in the history of humankind. We need to help them overcome greed and individualism.”  They are passionate about their mission to transform the world. Fading out at the end, we are still left with questions about the relationship between the indigenous women from South America and the German devotees of North American tribal cultures. Will this encounter be a real possibility of enabling change or are the women’s hopes just a fantasy? 

text © Siobhan Wall 2019

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HD video 3 min, stereo sound, 2014
+ 12 photos

Four teenage girls appear to be having a good time in the park, enjoying a hot sunny day.
At a closer look though, they seem to be distracted by a presence under the shadow of a tree. They carry on playing until the moment they can’t hide their curiosity anymore and decide to take a closer look.

In Blossom, we are watching blond girls, who in their turn are watching a dark figure not so far away. This quiet, unmoving figure suggests the disquieting presence of “the other” in a place where it doesn’t seem to belong.
Although the girls seem to be playing like children, their bodies are already transforming into young women’s bodies and their clumsiness show they are still adjusting. At moments they seem like giant “Alices in Wonderland” The figure in the shadow is physically different from them and doesn’t take part in their games. It is a quiet, but disturbing presence.

“De film Blossom! leest als een gedicht. In zijn eerste lezing eenvoudig, maar bij een tweede of derde lezing is er voor de beschouwer, een andere, nieuwe betekenis te vinden. In de schaduw van de bloeinde meisjes, spelt zich een verbogen geschiedenis af. Leeft de man eigenlijk wel? Of is hij juist gestorven? Is het een droom? Het zijn geheimzinnige beelden met de kracht van poezie.”

Jose Vonk

(installation view)

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https://vimeo.com/97221985

Video HD 4min, stereo sound, 2014

Christina Wild is a woman with Canadian-Sechelt tribal roots who lives and works in The Netherlands. Together with her mother, Tenderjoy Wild, she dreams of a different life in a different place. Although they both have jobs and entertain themselves, they feel like foreign bodies no matter where they go. The artificial landscapes where they wander about don’t contribute to a sense of belonging and the only option remains to dream about happier and sunnier places.

The post Native Colors appeared first on Patricia Werneck Ribas.

http://www.theoneminutes.org/content/04-about/3-press/for-release-world-at-a-crossroads-open-call-wake-up-call.pdf

World at a Crossroads – Open Call, Wake Up Call is curated by Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson. The series consists of thirteen one-minute films by various artists reflecting on our volatile present and envisioning our future, by merging performance and portrayal and appropriating texts and juxtaposing to still and moving images.

PARTICIPANTS

Minhong Yu
Golrokh Goli Nafisi
Florencia Almiron
Ina Wudtke
Cihad Caner
Mohamed Youssef
María Linares
Monika Gruzite
Vikenti Komitski
Thais F. Guisasola
Emil Freyr Freysson and Björgvin Helgi Möller Pálsson
Patricia Werneck Ribas
Katrin Jónsdottir Hjördisardóttir

SCREENINGS

Art Museum of Nanjing University of the Arts (CN)
Amsterdam Academy of Architecture (NL)
Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht (NL)
Dortmunder U (DE)
East China Normal University, Shanghai (CN)
Lloyd Hotel & Cultural Embassy, Amsterdam (NL)
Museum de Fundatie, Zwolle (NL)
Museum Hilversum (NL)
Sandberg Instituut, Amsterdam (NL)
WOW, Amsterdam (NL)
Reykjavík International Film Festival (IS)
National gallery of Iceland – Listasafn Íslands, Reykjavík (IS)

https://vimeo.com/191134591

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The syllable “Ia” appears as a root in several words in the Jê language spoken by the kaypó people in Brazil. While images of the suburbs of a Brazilian town is shown, some of these indigenous words are spoken by an anonymous voice, referring to what would be some of the legacy of the colonisation process.

 https://manifesta.org/2016/06/premiere-screening-of-colon-culo-o-conquista-by-dick-verdult-dick-el-demasiado/

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