As an artist, writer, teacher and curator, Carla Zaccagnini dedicates herself to in-depth investigations on the underlying ideological and aesthetic underpinnings of official and historical narratives. In recent works, Zaccagnini has addressed the deep contradictions in the construction of Brazilian identity and the idea of Brazil as a (modern) nation, a country in which she was raised and where she lived for many years. By juxtaposing documents and well-known facts with rumours and fiction in an analytical and interrogative approach, she pinpoints the limits of history as discourse and representation, but also proposes a critical revision of the country’s symbols and heroes still haunted by the phantoms of its colonial past.

In this short presentation for tropical papers recorded in January 2021, Zaccagnini briefly introduces one of the projects she is currently working on as an artist, in collaboration with bio-physicist Santiago Costantino. Drawing from her interest in language and translation, she is elaborating a comparative study of national anthems from the observation of the repetition of the words, meanings and notes associated with different nations and their aspired uniqueness and greatness.

Carla Zaccagnini was born in Argentina, and lives and works in Mälmo, Sweden. She is a professor of Conceptual and Contextual Practices at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, and guest curator of the 34th Bienal de São Paulo. Her group shows include A Universal History of Infamy (LACMA, Los Angeles, 2017), Un saber realmente útil (Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, 2014), Under the Same Sun (Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2014). Her recent solo shows include Mañana iba a ser ayer (MUNTREF, Buenos Aires, 2019), You say you are one, I hear we are many (Obra, Malmö, 2019), El presente, mañana (Museo Experimental el Eco, Mexico DF, 2018).

Olivia Ardui for tropical papers

POSTED: @tropicalpapers_12.03. 2021