Ser mil e uma: imagens dançaram em seus próprios tempos até chegarem a mim

Abstract

This autobiographical essay writing is a drift full of doubts - which is woven together with reflections on and with the processes of artistic creation. Defining itself as a research in art, it aimed to create artistic works based on photographic images from my family's collection, including photos taken in Lebanon in the 1950s and collected by my great-grandmother since her immigration to Brazil. I start from the position of great-granddaughter of Lebanese immigrants to appropriate such photographs with a poetic intention that addresses issues of identity, gender and belonging while criticizing orientalist stereotypes. I therefore draw on Edward Said's (2007) definition of Orientalism, using it as a theoretical-critical nutrient to perceive Eurocentric discourses and epistemologies in images of Art and Visual Culture referring to Arab countries. Inserted in the research line Artistic Poetics and Creation Processes of the Postgraduate Program in Art and Visual Culture at FAV/UFG, the relevance of the research glimpses the current geopolitical configuration of the “Middle East” and how the Western media reproduces stereotypes that affect refugees and immigrants. The methodology benefits from the notions of Autobiographical Research in Art, proposed by Manoela dos Anjos Afonso Rodrigues (2021) and autofiction by Nelson Guerreiro (2011). I present as artistic results created in this context, a set of works that seeks to technically explore artist books, photography, performance and video from a “feminist way of unarchiving” as presented by Luana Saturnino Tvardovskas (2021).