Performance in French

The lecture-performance Closer than Cafundó by Mabe Bethônico, is an associative wandering through Brazil’s past and present. The narration derives from the meaning of certain indigenous names of mining towns in Minas Gerais. In stories of exploitation and abandonment, decimation of indigenous population and African slavery of colonial times are associated with minerals and food. The narrative takes us to practices in post-mining operations, contrasting with the necessity for land in the same communities, which, in the past, have been sacrificed in favor of the imperial craving for precious minerals. The visuals derive from an informal photographic inventory made by the artist in a “supermarket” for semi-precious stones in Minas Gerais’ capital – Belo Horizonte – and of collections of beans and earth on the university campus of Viçosa, which conducts research for the agricultural industry while serving the mining industry by testing and implementing phytoremediation projects. 

The performance is followed by a Q&A moderated by Kenza Benabderrazik, environmental engineer and lecturer, head of the Greenhouse Art-Lab of the Sustainable Agroecosystems Group, ETH Zurich.