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BY GOBIRA, APRIL
2005
Human
beings are not built in silence, but in word,
in work, in action-reflection.
(Paulo Freire)
CONTEMPORARY
ART IN A SMALL TOWN’S LIFE AND THE EDUCATIONAL
POTENTIAL OF THREE BEETLES
The
major goal of this essay is to analyse, from an educational
point of view, the contemporary art object “Troca-Troca”,
Swapping; three beetles re-configured in auto shops
in the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, a project coordinated
by the artist Jarbas Lopes and to |
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analyse the text Diary of Bards, written when Jarbas
and seven other friends were travelling in the three
cars from Rio de Janeiro to Curitiba, where they were
delivered for an exhibition |
Also, to analyse the relationship of one Museum of Contemporary
Art with a community of a small town in the Brazilian countryside
and briefly, what the beetle represents in Brazilian culture.
GAMBIARRA
– BRAZIL-UK - BRAZIL
My first contact with Jarbas Lopes’ work happened in
2004 during the collective exhibition of Brazilian artists,
“Gambiarra” at Firstsite - Minorities Galleries
in Colchester. The exhibition was organized by Gasworks and
presented for the first time in London in the Autumn of 2003.
The idea was to show a group of Brazilian artists who adopted
similar practices.
Gambiarra, or ‘making do’ when translated from
Brazilian Portuguese, refers to a common strategy employed
by all artists involved in this project; who not only see
this as a plausible methodology for fabricating works, but
also, and more importantly,as a powerful and positive metaphor
for their reflections on the state of cultural institutions
and the complexity of their position as part of those institutions.
The decisions made by the artists to use short-term solutions,
low-tech materials and to ‘make do’ with what
is to hand refers to the multitude of extreme inequalities
which are part of Brazilian society, inherently affecting
its values and symbols. (Gasworks, 2003)
“Gambiarra”
is a common practice amongst Brazilians, less fortunate groups
of society must be extremely creative in order to get the
necessary objects for their daily life, and such knowledge
is taught in the family. As a child I used to transform the
remains of consumer goods and foodstuff into toys, and I watched
my grandfather, a small farmer in Bahia, Brazilian Northeast,
transform tomato sauce tins and small pieces of clothes into
oil lamps.
The proximity of my own experience with the artistic practices
in Gambiarra was crucial in my decision to write about Jarbas
Lopes work, while looking closely at the written material
distributed in the exhibition I came across the “Diary
of Bards”. The diary is a poetic description of a journey
in November 2002 of three beetles, from the place where it
was re-configured in the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro until
its destiny, the New Museum of Contemporary Art in Paraná,
South of Brazil. The poetic report and the idea to transform
beetles into objects of contemporary art touched my imagination.
Searching on the Internet, I found out that a new institution
called CACI – Centro de Arte Contemporânea Inhotim
- had acquired the Troca-Troca. CACI is located in the middle
of Brazil, the state of Minas Gerais, sixty kilometres far
from its Capital City, Belo Horizonte.
CONTEMPORARY
ART AND LANDSCAPE INTERVENTION IN A SMALL TOWN
Before analysing the beetles of “Troca-Troca”
and the “Diary of Bards”, some reflections
about the place where it is located and the position
occupied by the beetle within Brazilian culture are
vital.
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First
of all, it is necessary to comprehend the purpose of CACI
and why such a place has been built in a small town far from
the main Brazilian economical centres, about 600 hundred kilometres
far from São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, and also forty-five
minutes by car from the state capital, Belo Horizonte.
The institution is located in a farm and has in its collection
a vast group of contemporary objects of art, mainly Brazilian.
The museum called CACI – Centro de Arte Contemporânea
Inhotim – is an enterprise of one man, Bernardo Paz;
a businessman, owner of one mining company, Itaminas; and
according to the release distributed to the press: “This
is the country’s most important art initiative from
an institutional point of view, since the creation of MASP
– São Paulo Art Museum – by Assis Chateaubriand
in 1947”. (CACI press release, 2003)
MASP is one of the most important Brazilian art institutions
and it is a result of an individual initiative. The enterprise
of Assis Chateaubriand, a businessman, the owner of newpapers,
radio and TV stations, supported by the Italian curator Pietro
Maria Bardi, the Director of the Museum from 1947 to 1990s,
built one of the largest collection of modern art in Latin
America; it has provided the Brazilian public with possibilities
to appreciate the works of Picasso, Van Gogh and Monet, among
others.
CACI is located in a farm, it has 300.000 square meters of
gardens, inside 1.5 million square meters of native forest,
a property of Bernardo Paz, where he also has his country
house. In the 1980’s Paz began to collect Brazilian
modern art; later on, in 1998, he bought his first piece of
contemporary art, an installation from the Brazilian artist
Tunga. The contact with the artist while the installation
was being created changed his ideas about art; consequently
he sold his collection of modernist pictures and started buying
other contemporary objects and installations. The acquisition
of big installations and objects led him to build galleries
in order to accommodate his collection.
The country house was transformed into a private cultural
centre where he invited the world famous landscape architect
Burle Marx to design part of its gardens. At the total a group
of seven galleries, spread over the 300.000 square meters,
have been developed. Four curators joined the Museum, the
Brazilians Ricardo Sardenberg and Rodrigo Moura, the German
Jochen Volz and the North-American Allan Schwartzman. Schwartzman
acts as permanent curatorial director for the CACI collection.
In 2004, one of the most prestigious events in Brazilian art
happened, the XXVI São Paulo Biennial. Bernardo Paz
and his group of curators decided it was a great opportunity
to introduce the museum to the press, artists and critics,
even though the construction work on important parts of the
museum had not been completed. CACI has a group of seven galleries
and a collection including 450 works of Brazilian artists
such as Cildo Meireles, Miguel Rio Branco, Tunga, Ernesto
Neto, Vik Muniz and Helio Oiticica; also of foreign artists
such as Paul McCarthy, Dan Graham, Albert Oehlen, Olafur Eliasson,
Franz Ackerman, Zhang Huan and Janet Cardiff.
The Museum opened on 27th of September 2004 for guests. Ever
since, it has been promoting monitored visits for students,
art teachers, artists and journalists. The museum is expected
to open to the general public in the second semester of 2005.
CACI
website is still under construction and there is not
a document where we can find a clear message about the
mission or intentions of the Institution, though I have
assumed the following statement from Bernardo Paz, the
CACI’s director as a kind of museum mission: “Art
only makes sense when it is cherished by all. There
is no reason for restricting contemporary art access
to a few art collectors. That was our key purpose when
creating the Caci,” (Paz, 2004) |
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Assuming
his statement is a declaration of his intentions, the questions
arising are: Is it important to create objects of contemporary
art cherished by all? Is it possible to give access to contemporary
art for all? What sort of connections with the community can
be established in order to leave all the channels open for
dialogue and to turn the Museum into an educational institution?
In Museum and Gallery in Education, Hooper-Greenhill wrote
the following:
At the end of the twentieth century, one hundred years after
the introduction of schooling for all, the philosophy of lifelong
learning and the recognition that learning does not end with
the completion of formal schooling, can provide a theoretical
underpinning for new efforts to make museums both educational
and entertaining for all. (Hooper-Greenhill, 1994: 10)
Education problems in Brazil are far from being solved, in
a town like Brumadinho, for instance, according to IBGE, the
Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, the number
of school years from each householder is an average of around
five years.
Considering such a rate, the responsibility of a place like
CACI is enormous. CACI should promote the encounter between
contemporary artists and the Brumadinho community; it is vital
to the success of the institution from an educational point
of view; a democratic encounter that considers the community’s
way of life and culture.
Because
dialogue is an encounter among women and men who name the
world, it must not be a situation where some name on behalf
of others. It is an act of creation; it must not serve as
a crafty instrument for the domination of one person by another.
(Freire, 1993: 70)
Despite
the absence of an Educational department at the present moment,
some actions from the curatorial body show a clear intention
to promote the encounter between the Museum and the community.
An artist-in-residency scheme has been launched and the proposal
is to create an atmosphere where young artists can explore
the surrounding environment, working within the community.
Two North-American Artists, John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres
have been commissioned to develop a work within the Brumadinho
community; the Museum rents a room in the town’s bus
station and the artists have been casting life size models,
from all sorts of people, including young, old, men and women,
rich and poor.
The artists also took part in a popular festival, Congada,
an Afro-Brazilian festival, and have cast hands, faces and
feet from musicians and dancers taking part in the festival.
Both works are still in progress, they can already be appreciated
in Brumadinho Cultural Centre, in the inner town.
Another important decision from CACI’s direction was
to embrace and support a catholic church in the outskirts
of the Gardens where the museum is located. The church holds
a mass on Sundays and all festivals, which are part of catholic
memorable dates, take place exactly as they did before the
museum construction.
THE
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BEETLE IN BRAZILIAN CULTURE
In
order to understand the impact of Jarbas Lopes, especially
to the Brazilian audience, it is essential to make a
brief account of the importance of the beetle in Brazilian
culture.
The name for the Volkswagen beetle in Brazil is “Fusca”,
it is still a popular car, especially in poor regions,
where the roads are not paved.
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The production of the beetle had been interrupted since 1996,
although still old cars maintain a good commercial value.
Bettle lovers created a special day to celebrate the car,
20th of January. In the Diary of Bards, there is a mention
of a meeting in Barra do Turvo, one of the poorest regions
in São Paulo state.
Back
on the road, almost getting to the border, in Barra do Turvo,
we went for a dive. We stop to ask and met Evandro at a small
dusty square, a house and a joint, in the middle of nowhere,
surrounded by hills, the perfect landscape just waiting for
some makeup. He had a beige beetle… We took the road
and turned right, where the dirty road started going into
the woods, the modern passes by. We got off the cars down
the gully and went for a dip. Zennudism in Iara’s waters
– Aimbere. And there we stayed, stoned in the wilderness,
high on the water flow. (Diary of Bards, 2002).
Beetle origins date back to 1930s Nazi Germany; in 1959 Brazil
began to manufacturethe vehicle. Brazil was living the dream
of transforming itself into an industrialized country, a car
like “Fusca” was perfect to fulfil the aspirations
of the middle class as well as the demagogic discourse of
politicians. Later on, in 1962 the car was already a best
seller in Brazil.
In 1970, during the military dictatorship, Brazil won the
Football World Cup, a politician from São Paulo gave
one beetle for each one of the Brazilian players, a perfect
marriage: football and Fusca. During the 1970s, the sale of
beetles increased considerably, different models were launched
systematically. However, by the end of the decade the beetle
was no longer for the middle class, it had become a car used
by small farmers and by the working class living in the big
cities. In 1978 the German Volkswagen interrupted its production
in Europe, but the Brazilian factory carried on producing
Fusca until 1986. In 1993, the Brazilian president Itamar
Franco asked the German company to begin the production of
Fusca once again; the car was produced until 1996 when the
company decided to end the production once and for all. In
the Brazilian countryside, “Fusca” is still one
of the most desirable cars, it is a car to travel on dust
roads and it is easy to find someone to fix it. In Brazil,
everyone can turn into a mechanic, especially for the beetle,
the FUSCA.
A new beetle was launched internationally in 1998, in the
same year Bernardo Paz began his collection; although the
new beetle is not produced in Brazil, it is an imported and
expensive car for Brazilians in general, the buyers are often
well off or from the upper middle classes.
COLLABORATIVE
WORK
The
Troca-Troca or Swapping are three cars, more precisely,
three beetles re-configured by Jarbas Lopes:
Three
cars, networked by sound, plugged to each other. Three
gigantic toys in the colours red, yellow and blue. Doors,
hoods, trunks everything exchanged… The cars in
primary colours… Or in colours “on probation”…
A beauty (Diary of Bards, 2002)
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Eight
friends, including Jarbas travelled from Rio de Janeiro to
Curitiba, eight hundreds kilometres of roads, having in the
middle of the journey São Paulo city. Travelling with
Jarbas were Marssares, Ducha, Aimbere, Sergio da Torre, Leo,
Jorge Melodia and Luis Andrade. Andrade wrote part of the
Diary, the trip between Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo;
from Sao Paulo to Curitiba; Jarbas was in charge of writing
the diary.
The deal was to drive this new production harvest in a convoy
until the state of Paraná, where we would hand them
over to some black marketers, in a local Institution…”
Opening of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, in November
2002, in Paraná. (Diary of Bards, 2002)
The Troca-Troca or Swapping arose from the collaboration of
the eight guys who travelled together, a group of mechanics,
a specialist in car sound and an upholsterer. It is a good
example of collaborative work, another typical aspect of Brazilian
culture.
Collective effort to build houses, plant and hunt was and
is still a common practice amongst Brazilian indigenous people,
the first inhabitants of Brazil. Collective work is also a
common practice in the countryside; during the seeding and
the harvesting neighbours help each other. The same happens
in big cities where collective effort help people to build
houses.
I am sure that the collaboration is not something exclusive
of Brazilian culture, it is present in poor countries and
it was also present in Europe and USA before the Industrial
Revolution, in the Eighteenth Century.
Talking in art terms, the collaboration was something frequent
in the past; especially before the Renaissance. After that
period, in particular during modernist times, the individual
approach, the artist as a genius, dictated the mode of making
art. Only recently the question of collective and collaborative
work of art has been discussed as an important alternative
to the individual approach. As Suzan Lacy had pointed out:
…There is a distinct shift in the focus of creativity
from the autonomous, self-contained individual to a new kind
of dialogical structure that frequently is not the product
of a single individual but is the result of a collaborative
and interdependent process. As artists step out of the old
framework and reconsider what it means to be an artist, they
are reconstructing the relationship between individual and
community, between artwork and public. (Lacy, 1995: 76)
In
Brazil, the individual approach of making art is an inheritance
from academic and modernist Europe; however, popular and folk
Brazilian art is essentially collaborative. A group of Brazilian
artists, in particular Helio Oiticica and Ligia Clark, questioned
in the 1950s and 1960s the position of the artist and of the
object of art, not only the individual approach of making
art but also the participation and appreciation of art. In
Brazilian culture, participation is fundamental; "I believe
that our great invention is exactly in the form of participation
or, better than that, in its meaning, in which we differ from
what is proposed in super civilized Europe or in the USA."
(OITICICA, 2004)
CARNIVAL AND CONTEMPORARY ART
The
three beetles are objects of art and its place should be on
the street, mixed with people, it is a strange impression
to see them fixed to one place, in a museum, even if they
are outside of the gallery. I have pictured them as art in
movement, from one town to another, in the same way; Jarbas
and his dudes did when they delivered them to the New Museum
of Contemporary Art in Paraná.
They should be a symbol questioning the role of contemporary
art, the role of the Museum, exchanging information on the
streets. Like a carnival allegory, the carnival extended to
the whole year, the art on the street.
This opposition between street and house is basic, and it
can be a powerful tool in analysing the Brazilian social world,
especially when one wants to examine its process of ritualization.
The category street basically points to the world with its
unpredictable events, accidents, and passions; the house refers
to a controlled universe where everything is in its proper
place. The street implies movement, novelty, action; the house
implies harmony and calm. (DaMatta, 1991: 64)
The house, in the case of our study the Museum, will take
out the cars from the streets and from the people; of course
they are different objects now, though they belong to the
people’s imagination; when taken from their daily life
from the streets, they obtain new codes of values.
Instead of being presented and fixed only for appreciation,
why not support the idea of a work of art to be used by the
public, to be on the street, belonging to the pleasures of
daily life, calling for participation, taking the risks inherent
to the streets?
It seems that the artist has a clear idea of the role of his
objects. Jarbas Lopes was in CACI in the second semester of
2004, and during his permanence there he took the cars out
of the museum, driving on the streets of Brumadinho, stopping
in squares, listening to music on the street, talking to people.
Is the museum committed to make the three beetles alive, like
Jarbas had been doing with them? In the words of Bernardo
Paz: “There is no reason for restricting contemporary
art access to a few art collectors”. Someone from the
museum can say that it is easy for everyone to visit the museum
and see the cars. However, I doubt if everyone who lives in
Brumadinho, not to mention other towns in the region, could
feel comfortable visiting such place as CACI. But if someone
see the cars on the street, touches them, listens to the music
emanating from them, he or she can be attracted to see what
else the Museum can offer, the cars could create bridges and
open channels, facilitating access to the museum.
Knowledge
is seen as situated or positioned, and as part of culture.
Knowledge is also seen as provisional, which enables
the acknowledgement of the unstable character of meaning.
The certainties of modernism have been replaced by the
fluidity of post-modernism, with its indeterminacies,
fragmentation, decanonisation, hybridisation and constructionism.
(Hooper-Greenhill,2000: 141). |
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How many inhabitants of Brumadinho have visited any Museum
before? There are no statistics available, but I doubt if
five per cent of the population have visited such a place.
It is not the case of expecting that everyone will visit CACI,
though everyone should be comfortable enough to visit it,
whenever they want.
A text published by the Victoria and Albert Museum about museums
and learning in the United Kingdom, points out the possible
benefits that a museum can provide:
Every
local community needs public space that is welcoming and secure,
and encourages participation. Museums can provide such a space.
Their values, codes of morality and expectations of behaviour
help to shape those of the public. Their willingness to embrace
diversity, and to remove barriers to access of whatever kind,
establishes norms of inclusion which can influence private
behaviour. Museums can also have an important role in defining
public notions of quality, including aesthetic quality, in
their communities, and can serve as places of debate, informed
discussion, and expression of public feeling. For those members
of the public whose private domain may be impoverished and
insecure, the existence of a clean, comfortable and beautiful
place, which is theirs to enters and share with others as
of right, brings particular benefits. Museums are metaphors
for the kind of society we have, and the society we wish to
create. (Anderson, 1997: 8)
ON
THE ROAD
Following
the words from the Diary of Bards “Let’s, for
a moment, put aside the possible references of History”;
though I will analyse three aspects of the Troca-Troca or
Swapping considering the words in the Diary. Firstly, the
relationship between popular and folk art and Brazilian contemporary
art. Secondly, I will analyse the authoritative aspects of
the objects of contemporary art and the legality of the three
beetles.
The choice of beetles in itself shows a clear preference for
the popular by Jarbas Lopes. Another indication for the popular
is the soundtrack; it is one very close to the taste of the
Brazilian working class. The ”three cars, networked
by sound, plugged to each other” were mastered by Massares,
one of the artists in the group specialized in sound. I have
extracted a few words from the Diary that indicate the preference
for the popular: “Batucada (drumming)”,“The
easy going pagode (backyard samba)”, “Samba and
drum machine”, “Cartola Sound tracks”, “Bezerra
da Silva”, “Some easy going pagode and country
music in Jorge Melodia’s cavaco [small guitar]”.
It is also present in the text a reference from Mundo Livre
S/A, a group from Recife, North-East of Brazil, and Luis Tati,
a musician and teacher from São Paulo.
The references are well know in Brazil, for its connections
with the less unfortunate part of society, sometimes they
are related to the roguery and favelas. It is interesting
to notice the following piece of text when the group were
in the outskirts of Greater Sao Paulo:
A
whole day at Pernambuco auto shop. The owner, Pernambuco,
is heavy, talks loud and has a past: he was from the
gang and the local drug traffic, made a bundle, spent
a lot, but nowadays is a working man”…//
sem ralar alarmes// He did some singing in the CD I
made with Massares down the road… Fixed the mechanical
problem. (Diary of Bards, 2002) |
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During the meeting with Pernambuco, two different aspects
of the work can be observed, the collaboration of the mechanic
and also the collaboration of the musician, the “singer”
Pernambuco. The other characteristic is the boundary between
the legal and illegal. Pernambuco had been a criminal before,
now he is the owner of an autoshop. What about the cars? According
to a professional of CACI, the cars are legal with all the
documentation required to be driven; however the encounter
with the policy described in the diary have revealed at least
a suspicion that not everything was strictly within the law;
not just the law referring to the cars, but also the arts
law.
THE POLICE – THE ART AUTHORITY
Four encounters with the police are mentioned in the diary,
the first one happened in Rio de Janeiro, however there is
no mention of talking to the police. “Just in front
of Cecilia Meireles Hall, there is a police roadblock, by
chance.” The other encounters happened in São
Paulo State, the first one in the Capital, at Avenida Paulista,
a symbol of global economic power, with banks from everywhere
in the world, Citybank, HSBC, Bank of Boston and many others;
it is also the MASP address, a symbol of modern art in Brazil:
“Soon another point of reference, the MASP building
[Sao Paulo’s Museum of Art], just like he said, we followed
Avant Gard.”
The avenue is also a popular meeting point to celebrate the
anniversary of the city, football championships, electoral
victories of the city mayor, presidential elections, carnival,
etc…
In spite of its popularity, Paulista Avenue is not a place
where you can find many ”Fuscas”, especially Fuscas
parked or disturbing the traffic, there is no dialogue with
the authorities.
You
better turn on your engines and split! Otherwise, I’ll
call for reinforcements and all of you will be arrested, the
vehicles impounded and your documents taken.” It was
a policewoman, escorted by two policemen… I addressed
her and said: “But, darling, it is that…”Darling
my eye! Show some respect for authority! I’m lieutenant
So and So, stationed at…, etc, etc. (Diary of Bards,
2002)
During
the other two encounters it was possible to talk to the guys
from the law, especially during the first one.
Lights
and sirens on the lane. Highway Police, pull over guys. Emergency
Lights on, we talk about art and laws gently. – Do you
know what contemporary art is, bro? No, me neither, but that’s
all right, everybody knows what it is. All right? All right.
Bye-bye and bless ya. (Diary of Bards, 2002)
During
the last encounter they used the art discourse to explain
their trip to the police, and later on they were invited to
explain it thoroughly at the police station:
Suddenly,
a police car appears in front of the auto shop and the policewoman
signals to me with her finger, they want to know what the
story is all about, I told them art tells lies and if they
want to be cheated they should start seeing contemporary art.
They invited me, in a friendly way, to talk about it with
the town’s sheriff, we though it was wiser not to accept
it, and when the job was done, we burned the tires. (Diary
of Bards, 2002)
It is interesting to notice that in all encounters there is
no clash between the artists and the police, and despite some
threat, the policemen and the policewomen did not ask for
documents or something that could prove the authenticity of
the artists’ discourse. Does contemporary art need explanation?
Is it clear by itself? Or was it that the contemporary objects
of art left our policemen and policewomen astonished?
In one of Ducha’s works, one of the artists in the group,
something similar happened. In his art intervention Coca-Coca:
posters were put right next to a police station without anybody
noticing anything… It remained side-by-side with the
police station for 15 days. … The camera we used while
we glued the posters raised more attention than the content
of the wall posters themselves. Two policemen stood there
looking. They’d never seen a night video being shot.
(Ducha, 2003)
If, on the one hand, there is astonishment and confusion from
the police and from the general public, concerning contemporary
art; on the other hand, the artists use the ambiguity of the
messages of popular culture and cleverly use all its potential
as a form of resistance. They are using what we call in Brazil
“malandragem” (“streetwiseness”):
…on the street one, must be careful not to violate the
unknown or unperceived hierarchies. One must also be careful
not to fall prey to people who want do deceive or ensnare
us, since the basic rule of the street is to deceive, the
deception and roguery (malandragem) – the Brazilian
art of using ambiguity as a tool for living. (Da Matta, 1991:
64)
POSH OR POPULAR?
The
acquisition of Troca-Troca by CACI shows the importance given
to artists who, up to a few years ago, could be stamped as
marginal, inconsequential or naive; however there are some
risks taken by the museum. The first one is to transform the
beetles into domesticated objects; positioning them under
the great tree. Is it the wisdom tree? Without being a “threat”
to the civilized world of art and to the street.
In the beginning, the beetle was produced in Brazil exclusively
for the rich, and then it became popular, accessible to the
working classes. The new version is made for the rich. The
old and popular beetles, transformed as objects of art by
Jarbas Lopes, can also be turned into a posh object, appreciated
only by a select audience, but there is another risk: the
risk of turning it into a joke with no interest for anyone.
Once
more, it is important to point out the social responsibility
of CACI. Any object of art can be incorporated and domesticated
or they could be live objects, helping to understand
the surrounding environment, to understand the culture
of a people, not as an object that carries the truth,
but as objects sharing meaning and knowledge. |
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Thanks to Nicholas Addison and Lesley Burgess (Institute of
Education), Thiago Gomide and Felipe Taboada (CACI), Debora
Chobanian and Marlene Peret.
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