The Federal University of Health Sciences of Porto Alegre (UFCSPA), through the Cultural Center, opens this Tuesday, November 7th, at 7pm, in the Arts Space, the exhibition “Ygapó – Floresta Encantada de Águas”, by artist Andréa Brächer, curated by Letícia Lau. Visitation is from Monday to Friday, from 10am to 8pm, and Saturdays from 9am to 12pm, until December 14, 2023, in the exhibition space located at Rua Sarmento Leite, 245, Building 01, ground floor, in the Historic Center of Porto Alegre/ LOL. Entry is free.
The exhibition “Ygapó – Floresta Encantada de Águas” brings together photographs, with a cyanotype matrix, and a video made by the artist Andréa Brächer in the Lower Amazon region, in Alter do Chão, Pará, where she captured more than a thousand images during a photographic immersion . In this region, the presence of igapós stands out, which is the part of the Amazon Forest that remains flooded even when the rivers are dry. In the Tupi language “Yapó” is the result of the union of two words, Y water and APÓ root. In other words, water roots. This is how the word Ygapó appears, created by the artist to represent this exhibition.
The forest and fables are relevant elements that are very present in the artist’s poetics. In this exhibition, fragments of a water forest are presented as a narrative of a tale, which evokes the magic of the place. The stories from the playful and enchanted setting, where imagination flows, are provoked by the riparian forest, sometimes lush and sometimes flooded.
The outline of this production, which has at its core the concept of fable, points out important issues for the present day with regard to nature, identity, preservation and culture, with water as the identity of the place and its importance for the riverside peoples.
Brächer, with his practices and research centered on historical processes, presents a production that unites the historical and the contemporary, that is, he revisits analogue practices combined with digital practices, within an expanded photography language. The photographs are created using the cyanotype technique, a photographic process discovered in 1842 by Sir John Herschel. It has a sensitizing base of iron salts (potassium ferricyanide and ammonium ferric citrate), which acquires a blue color when exposed to the sun. Blue, in addition to being an indication of the technique, also refers to water in this exhibition.
According to curator Letícia Lau, “Ygapó – Floresta Encantada de Águas” is an invitation to allow ourselves to enter the world of imagination and fantasy and, at the same time, remain in the idea of preserving nature, the forest and local cultures. “An awakening to the knowledge of the history of photography, in its historical and ancient processes, transmuted into a contemporary language and flooded by the omnipresence of the color blue”, she concludes.
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SERVICE:
- What: “Ygapó – Enchanted Forest of Waters”, exhibition by Andréa Brächer
- Where: Arts Space Federal University of Health Sciences of Porto Alegre (UFCSPA, Rua Sarmento Leite, 245Building 01, ground floor, in the Historic Center of Porto Alegre/RS
- Period: Opening on November 7, 2023, at 7pm. Visitation from Monday to Friday, from 10am to 8pm, and Saturdays from 9am to 12pm, until December 14, 2023.
- How much: Free entrance
- Age recommendation: Book