Residue Resides
Felipe de Ávila
20 - 26.10.2018
Opening: Saturday 20.10.2018, 5 - 8pm
Open from 20 - 26.10.2018
Visiting hours:
Mon to Fri: 10am - 1pm & 2pm - 6pm
Sunday: 10am - 5pm
FB event: https://web.facebook.com/events/1209604802527787/
The exhibition Residue Resides comprises works over varied mediums such as sculpture, photography and video which were developed through an extensive research approaching that which is known as the biggest environmental disaster ever registered in Brazilian history.
In November 2015 an iron ore tailings dam suffered a catastrophic failure in a Brazilian countryside area, spilling 60 million m3 of iron waste residue in the environment. It destroyed local villages and compromised the water supply of larger cities along the 700 Km of the Doce River, which was destroyed by the mudflows before it reached the Atlantic ocean 17 days later.
A large part of the Latin-American economy is based on natural resources exploitation, at the same time increasingly becoming the main responsible for corruption, human right abuse, pollution, environmental destruction and climate change. The research approach of this disaster reflects on the consequences of the unruled resources exploitation industry of underdevelopment countries, underlying problems caused by the power of corporations and the ‘free trade agreements’ that often drive human rights abuses and environmental destruction in those regions.
The works presented in this exhibition explore different aspects of the residue and its materialization over varied mediums such as sculpture, video installation and photography; discussing also how the disaster manifests a parallel of a material and a human dystopia.
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Felipe de Ávila Franco is a Brazilian visual artist based in Helsinki-Finland since 2013. He holds an MFA diploma (2017) from Kuvataideaktemia and develops his work through meticulous material investigations which are led sculpture oriented.
His work is dedicated to investigating materiality and material agency, following non-linear methods to examine materials, objects, spaces and events while evoking possible tensions between their agencies, properties and meanings. Exploring with both traditional and experimental techniques, he combines knowledge from different fields, considering art as a tool to approach new perspectives of knowledge.
Pointing out geopolitical and humanistic issues of our time, De Avila's works instigate perception and confront traditional notions such as artificial and natural, modern and primitive, knowledge and belief. His works explore nuances of the industrial dystopia as an engine to develop inquiries and artistic approach that evoke reflections about the human conflict with itself, and in relation to the idea of 'nature' as something external to human society.
http://imagna.wixsite.com/felipedeavila
