Events

Technologies of Protest: Political Artivism

Wednesday, May 8, 2024 | 5:00 PM EST

The Hemispheric Institute is proud to present “Performances Negras”: Tactics, Strategies and Barricades in Contemporary Brazil, a series of virtual meetings on performance, politics, imagery, social justice, Blackness and reflections on urgent issues in contemporary Brazil, curated and presented by artist, researcher, and professor Rodrigo Severo. For this series of events, Severo invited artists, activists and intellectuals such as Rosane Borges, Castiel Vitorino Brasileiro, Débora Maria da Silva (Mothers of May Movement), Ayrson Heráclito and Leda Maria Martins.

All conversations in the series will be in Portuguese with simultaneous translation into English. Register for this conversation through the Zoom link below.

Event
Bios

Event

Technologies of Protest: Political Artivism

Rodrigo Severo in conversation with Débora Maria da Silva

Wednesday, May 8, 2024 | 5 PM EST

Brazilian human rights activist, founder of the Mothers of May Movement and researcher Débora Maria da Silva will reflect on the memories, experiences, and perspectives of mothers who have lost their sons and daughters to state violence in Latin America. The conversation will highlight the contributions of artistic-political actions within social movements that pressure the state and demand justice and social reparation.

Bios

Débora Maria da Silva

Débora Maria da Silva is a Brazilian human rights activist and founder of the Mothers of May Movement. She has dedicated herself to denouncing and independently investigating cases of police violence in Brazil. She is also an advocate of demilitarizing the police and opposes reducing the age of criminal responsibility. In addition to her work as an activist, da Silva is a researcher at the Center for Anthropology and Forensic Archaeology at the Federal University of São Paulo (CAAF/UNIFESP). She is the author of the book Mães De Maio: A Periferia Grita (Mothers of Day Movement: The Periphery Screams, 2012) and co-author and co-organizer of books such as Do luto à luta (From Grief to Struggle, 2011), and Mães de Maio, Memorial dos nossos filhos vivos: as vítimas invisíveis da democracia (Mothers of May, Memorial to Our Living Sons: The Invisible Victims of Democracy, 2019). Débora Maria da Silva also participated as co-author of the video Appeal, part of the 31st São Paulo Art Biennial (2014). In 2022, da Silva won the award for Best Supporting Actress at the Malaga Film Festival (Spain) for her performance in the film The Mother, directed by Cristiano Burlan.

Rodrigo Severo

Rodrigo Severo is an artist, researcher and teacher who works at the interfaces between performance, theater and expanded scene. He has a doctorate and a master's degree in Performing Arts from ECA/USP and a degree in Theater from UFRN. He is a member of the Laboratory of Performative Practices at ECA/USP and a founding member of Coletiva Preta Performance, which investigates ethnic-racial relations in Brazil and creates decolonized and anti-racist aesthetic actions. His research interests include Black performance studies, the African diaspora, the Black body, decolonized aesthetics, Black authorship, and the contemporary scene.