Awards
Elisabete Anderle Award for the Arts, Santa Catarina State, Brazil, 2014
SIMDEC Joinville Grant for the Arts, City of Joinville, Brazil, 2015
Troca de Entidades or Entity Swap is a transreligious exchange project in which I transport and install religious statuettes in spaces of worship of different religions. The exchanges always happen in pairs, as in two elements swapping positions in a game, and on the premise of being voluntary - that is, following a dialogue with the priests or priestesses responsible for the spaces, who must agree to take in the foreign entities I bring. Rites and prayers are exchanged with the statues so that each entity can be properly incorporated to local liturgies. These displacements and exchanges are documented in a series of photographs of the statuettes installed at their new homes.
I made the 1st exchange between Brazil and Haiti, from 2013 to 2014. I transported a statuette of Exú Marabô, purchased at a religious articles store, to Port-au-Prince, Haiti. There I installed the piece it at the Vodou temple of the late Papa Da, who was an artist and a priest.
I then transported a Haitian sculpture depicting Vodou deity Dambala to Brazil. I installed it at the Candomblé temple Ilê Axé Iya Omilodê, and left it at the care of priestess Jacila Barbosa.
The 2nd iteration received funding from the Brazilian Elisabete Anderle Award for the Arts. From 2015 to 2016 I exchanged and installed 6 deities between Brazil and Haiti. In Brazil I purchased cult statues of Umbanda deities Oxum, Nanã and Oxumaré, transported them to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and installed them at the Vodou spaces of Papada Alphonze, Richard Morse and Jean-Daniel Lafontant. While still in Haiti I purchased cult statues of Vodou deities Legba, Simbi and Erzulie Danto, transported them to Joinville, Brazil, and installed them at the Umbanda temples Oxóssi Pena Branca and Luz dos Orixás. Photographs by Steevens Siméon (Haiti) and Marcos Serafim (Brazil).
The 3rd iteration received funding from the Brazilian SIMDEC grant for the arts. From 2016 to 2017 I exchanged deities between Brazil and Japan. In Brazil I purchased a cult statue of Candomblé and Umbanda goddess Iemanjá and transported it to Tokyo, Japan, where I installed it at the Jyomyoin Buddhist Temple. While in Japan I purchased cult objects of Shinto deity Inari, transported them to Joinville, Brazil and installed them at the Umbanda temple Oxóssi Pena Branca. With photographs by myself and Marcos Serafim (Brazil).
Exhibitions
2017, XI Salão Nacional Victor Meirelles, Florianópolis, Brazil.
2016, Visa Gallery Brock University, Vai e vem / Back and Forth. St.Catherines, Canada.
2016, Museu de Arte de Joinville, Vai e vem / Back and Forth. Joinville, Brazil.
2015, 5th Ghetto Biennale. Juried, group exhibition. E. Pluribus Unum Musée d’Art, PaP, Haiti.
2013, 3rd Ghetto Biennale. Juried, group exhibition. E. Pluribus Unum Musée d’Art, PaP, Haiti.