Campanha Satânica
(Satanic Campaign)
mixed-media intervention, 2015-2016
A campaign in favor of forgiving the devil and giving him a chance. Comprised by two actions: interventions on exhibition opening food tables, and wheat-pasted posters in public spaces.
Why do we need an embodiment of absolute evil? Beyond the persistence of Zoroastrian archaisms, beyond medieval scare-tactics, what uses do we have today for images of an Other so different, so monstrous, that any identification or dialogue becomes impossible?
The campaign started with food table interventions. The first was at the opening of Organismo, a solo exhibit by artist Vini Poffo at Casa da Cultura in Joinville, Brazil, in July 23 of 2015. I had previously prepared 100 banana candy wraps with ribbons containing the following messages in Portuguese:
Vamos perdoar o Diabo (Let us forgive the Devil)
O Diabo te ama mais (The Devil loves you more)
Dê uma chance ao Diabo (Give the Devil a chance)
Diabo doce (Sweet Devil)
I placed the candy wraps on the food table among the other snacks. I did not reveal myself as the one responsible for the intervention. All of the candy was consumed throughout the event. The ribbons circulated among the public.
In September of 2014 this intervention was repeated in the city of Florianópolis, Brazil, as part of an exhibition, organized by SESC Santa Catarina, featuring artists from Santa Catarina state - myself included. Because I could not be present for the event, artists Maristela Medeiros and Daniele Zacarão helped put things together for the show. Big thanks!
In 2016 the campaign entered a new phase with posters created for the Semana de Arte de Londrina - a curated program of urban art organized by the Grafatório collective in the city of Londrina, Brazil. I appropriated 3 images from Gustave Doré’s series of illustrations for John Milton’s "Paradise Lost", and added the mottos of the campaign.
One of the events of Semana de Arte de Londrina was the wheat-pasting of various poster designs, submitted to the exhibition, on public spaces of Londrina. On these images, taken on the day of the installation, one can still see the posters of the campaign among others.
Images taken on the next day show that the campaign’s posters were vandalized overnight. Curiously, the vandal(s) did not touch any of the other posters. This demonstrates the necessity of the campaign.