MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38 is pleased to announce the opening of Molecular Revolution in Brazil in New York: Micropolitics and Cartographies of Desire. For this last project of the 2014 program, curatorial resident Eva Birkenstock invited the São Paulo-based initiative P.A.C.A. (Programa de Ações Culturais Autônomas, or Program for Autonomous Cultural Action) to jointly organize a seminar and series of events. During the course of the project, the gallery will transform into a space for readings, research, discussion, screenings, and lectures.

P.A.C.A. was founded in 2014 by the anthropologist and poet Pedro de Niemeyer Cesarino; artist and philosopher Amilcar Packer; psychoanalyst, philosopher, and cultural critic Suely Rolnik; and writer and cultural critic Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz. It was conceived as an independent laboratory for ethical and aesthetic knowledge production and experimental public education. Through a series of public seminars, P.A.C.A. intends to formulate a theoretical and practical toolbox in order to “uninstall, deprogram, dodge, evade, and undo the dominant, segregational politics of production of subjectivity structured by the colonial unconscious” (Rolnik). Following anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, P.A.C.A. explores the question of how to devise and enact a “permanent decolonization of thought.”

The first seminars were held earlier this year at São Paulo’s cultural center Casa Do Povo; Ludlow 38 and P.A.C.A. now bring the discussion to the local context of New York City. Looking back at the heterogeneous forms of political experience unchained by the wave of protests that swept the globe during the past several years, a public reading group will discuss the notion of micropolitics as a common framework for research on the production of subjectivity and the politics of desire.

The point of departure for the project is the book Molecular Revolution in Brazil by Suely Rolnik and Félix Guattari (published in English in 2007, originally released in Brazil in 1986 as Micropolíticas: Cartografias do Desejo). Between 1982 and 1984, only a few years before the end of the military dictatorship, Rolnik and Guattari undertook a series of meetings with members of minority groups, political and social movements, union leaders, and other activists in Brazil. A trans-historical and trans-continental cartography of political movements, these conversations ultimately constitute Guattari and Rolnik’s book, which sought to connect the experience of May ’68 in Paris with the new forms of alliances and political formations emerging in Brazil in the early 1980s, during years of arduous struggle for the re-democratization of the political system.

Molecular Revolution in Brazil in New York: Micropolitics and Cartographies of Desire proposes to analyze excerpts of this publication, as well as additional texts by Rolnik, Guattari, Gilles Deleuze, and Beatriz Preciado against the backdrop of current political struggles in Latin America, Europe, and the United States. In the evenings, the seminar component of the project will be complemented by programs on related artistic strategies and other past and present cultural contexts, including: Console and Classify, Therapy and Art: Psychiatry and Modern Art in Brazil, a lecture by art historian Kaira Cabañas; a presentation of Suely Rolnik’s project Archive for a Work-Event: Activating the Body’s Memory of Lygia Clark’s Practice; a conversation with artist, musician, and producer Lee Jaffee; Doris Criolla, a dinner with Creole food by Amilcar Packer; and a screening of the video essays Assemblages (2010) and The Life of Particles (2012) by Berlin-based artist Angela Melitopoulos and Paris-based philosopher Maurizio Lazzarato.

PROGRAM

P.A.C.A. (Programa de Ações Culturais Autônomas, São Paulo)
Introduction with Eva Birkenstock, Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz & Amilcar Packer
Monday, November 24, 7 PM
MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38

Seminar – Micropolitics and Cartographies of Desire
Reading and discussion
Tuesday, November 25, 11 AM-1 PM & 2-4 PM
MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38

Archive for a Work-Event: Activating the Body’s Memory of Lygia Clark’s Practice
Screening with an introduction to Suely Rolnik’s work on Lygia Clark by Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz & Amilcar Packer
Tuesday, November 25, 7 PM
MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38

Seminar – Micropolitics and Cartographies of Desire
Reading and discussion
Wednesday, November 26, 11 AM-1 PM & 2-4 PM
MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38

Brazilian Connection, Jamaican Connection, Connections…
Conversation, video and music interventions by Lee Jaffee (artist, photographer, filmmaker, musician, New York)
Wednesday, November 26, 7 PM
MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38

Doris Criolla
Creole dinner and presentation by Amilcar Packer
Sunday, November 30, 7 PM
Sunview Luncheonette, Greenpoint
(RSVP at info@ludlow38.org required)

Seminar – Micropolitics and Cartographies of Desire
Reading and discussion
Monday, December 1, 11 AM-1 PM & 2-4 PM
MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38

Console and Classify, Therapy and Art: Psychiatry and Modern Art in Brazil
Lecture by Kaira M. Cabañas (art historian, Rio de Janeiro)
Monday, December 1, 7PM
Goethe-Institut Wyoming Building
5 East 3rd Street

Seminar – Micropolitics and Cartographies of Desire
Reading and discussion with Angela Melitopoulos (artist, Berlin)
Tuesday, December 2, 11 AM-1 PM & 2-4 PM
MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38

Assemblages (2010, 62 min) by Maurizio Lazzarato and Angela Melitopoulos
Screening and Q&A session with Angela Melitopoulos
Tuesday, December 2, 5 PM
Goethe-Institut Wyoming Building
5 East 3rd Street

The Life of Particles (2012, 82 min) by Maurizio Lazzarato and Angela Melitopoulos
Screening and Q&A session with Angela Melitopoulos
Tuesday, December 2, 7 PM
Goethe-Institut Wyoming Building
5 East 3rd Street

Seminar – Micropolitics and Cartographies of Desire
Reading and discussion
Wednesday, December 3, 11 AM-1 PM & 2-4 PM
MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38

Micropolitics and Cartographies of Desire
Closing discussion with Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz & Amilcar Packer, followed by a reception
Wednesday, December 3, 7PM
MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38

Seminar participation:
All are welcome to join the seminar, in whole or in part. However, because of space limitations, we recommend advance confirmation of your participation at info@ludlow38.org. Click here for the seminar program.

Evening events:
All evening events are free and open to the public. No RSVP is required, except for the Doris Criolla dinner on November 30, 7 PM, for which we ask that you register in advance at info@ludlow38.org.

Initiated and organized by Eva Birkenstock, Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz, and Amilcar Packer