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Interview with Flávia Vieira, now on Umbigo’s cover of the month

Flávia Vieira has struck a chord between the European West and the revolutionary and transformational energy of the South American context in Brazil: one that perceives ceramics and textiles as vital vectors for pondering the hierarchies and significance attached to different forms of artistic expression. In between, these materials blur the boundaries between the handmade and the artistic, in an attempt to rebuild cultural practices by resonating with the identities of the communities in which they originated, providing a space where these stories still reverberate today.

In an interview with Umbigo, the artist explains her visual language, connecting with the subject through non-linear historical discourse, shattering historical, cultural and temporal boundaries to forge new ties and redefine collective memories and representations. And where the hand, between its labour and the ownership it claims, is the liaison between the individual and the collective, the visible and the invisible.

You live and work between Portugal and Brazil. How do you see the evolution of your work when comparing the two contexts?

My movement between Portugal and Brazil allows me to realise that my work evolves in dialogue with the specificities of each context. The art scene in Portugal bears a European legacy still shaped by a Eurocentric institutional approach, whereas coming into contact with Brazil prompts me to explore a more conscious and politicised visual language, reviewing my social and ontological references as a result of the more vivid relationship with identity, social and decolonial issues that pervades Brazilian culture. Brazil is a multicultural setting influenced by a colonial past where Portugal had a key role, making the artistic context not only more hybrid, but also more complex in terms of representativeness and social and political stance.

This artistic orientation happens mainly through ceramics and textiles. Having their roots in many different cultures and geographies, how do you strike a balance between maintaining traditional techniques and using contemporary artistic expressions?

Balancing the preservation of original techniques alongside the development of contemporary expressions is a sensitive and challenging process. They both have a profound historical background, whose ancestry and cultural significance must be honoured to avoid any appropriation gestures or new ‘colonisations’. I believe an approach that acknowledges and thoroughly studies traditional techniques is important, in an attempt to grasp their historical, symbolic and political context. I consider that incorporation occurs when a poetic dialogue is established with my repertoire and my existence, or, in other words, when a sort of echo is formed between the material and my existence. By taking on ancestral techniques, there are new ways of communicating and unfolding things visually and symbolically, calling for reflection on the subject’s relationship with time, nature and the collective. These processes provide space for new ramifications and ontological insights, as they lead to a review of cultural and historical systems and hierarchies.

That means that multiple historical and/or cultural narratives are challenged and explored through them.

Indeed, these are issues of power, identity, otherness, memory and collective representation.

And, amid all these reflections on social structures, there is nothing innocent about your choices, not even colours.

Colour has had a significant impact on my work, offering a range of activities in which these reflections are visually and profoundly dealt with. In Brasilina (2021), shown at KUBIKGallery, the use of pigment from the pau-brasil tree draws us back to the colonial history between Brazil and Portugal, specifically to the extraction and exploitation of natural resources, which is still being felt today. The colour operates as a symbolic reclamation of what has been appropriated and transformed into merchandise. Also in True Black (2023-2025), a project launched at Centro de Residencias Artísticas Matadero in Madrid and still in development, the colour black, from the pau-campeche tree native to Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, harks back to the rule of the Spanish empire over the Central and South American territories, and the appropriation of this natural resource and the dyeing expertise connected to it, developed by the original peoples of those regions. Colour turns into a living element and an assertive presence, whilst challenging us to pinpoint the subordination and environmental exploitation layers that still exist.

Exactly! Both works resort to straightforward, expressive metaphors that impress with their blunt finesse of meaning. Are these ways of articulating your conscious need to relocate imperial history and slavery to the present so as to decolonise narratives of power?

These works visually and symbolically address the lingering colonial power structures that, whilst stemming from a historical past, persist and continue to have a bearing on today’s social, economic, cultural and political ties. They reveal the need for a critical dialogue with history by using colours originating from both South American trees, carrying a history of extraction and appropriation of natural resources that sustained an imperial slave structure. These tonalities are re-signified as part of a process that converts colour into a symbol of power and racial hierarchy. The shift is the transition from a colour originally associated with earth and nature, used by native peoples, to a symbol appropriated and reconciled within a colonial system. In this way, it seeks a reconnection with these memories and provides the opportunity to reframe the narratives and build collective awareness around them.

Also touching on issues of representation and collective memory, I notice that other works frequently mention the human body. How do you harness the connection between the body and the materials used? And what political ramifications do you see in this interaction, especially in relation to gender or cultural identity?

The body emerges in my work as a symbolic space that enters into dialogue with the materials used. This interaction between the body and the materials unveils a realm of tension and dialogue between the natural and the cultural. Whenever I work with ceramics or use textile fibres that engage in dialogue with ways of making things, I am building a bridge between the physicality of the body and the symbolic nature of the materials. These turn into body extensions and reflect the collective identities and memories that the body carries. This bond between the body and materials challenges the historical notion of cultural identity, and the hair is a prime example of this. Sculpturally, hair is a living material that is difficult to depict, and this difficulty is in line with the crystallised categories of identity. It may also be thought that the body-matter relationship may have a direct implication on gender, as ceramics and textiles are historically associated with household labour. The body incorporates matter as a signifier, prompting it to form new insights and areas for discussion and reflection, and to develop new potential presences.

Pandã (2019), several woven and reproduced pieces simultaneously confront each other and dissipate in their visual illusions, blending hierarchies between materials, methods of production and references, from the erudite to the folk. Can it be that this fusion-agglomeration blurs individual forces and artistic value, at the expense of the ornamental character?

This project sees the first use of more traditional methodologies, like ceramics and textiles and, as such, clearly problematises the status or value of the object, as well as the connection between ‘erudite’ and ‘folk’ manifestations. The coexistence of textiles and ceramics featuring the same formal solution provides a space for dialogue and visual clash, where hierarchies are deliberately dissolved, defying separations between methods of doing things, or between that which is considered “erudite” and “folk”. This conflation affirms the ornamental as part of the aesthetic and cultural discourse, implying that the clustering of references empowers the notion that artistic value does not reside in a strict hierarchy, but in the ability of works to inform each other.

 How do you visualise the development of your practice in contemporary art? Are there any artistic movements/changes that are in line with your outlook for the future?

Movements focusing on local cultures and practices are particularly aligned with my vision. We have been seeing a growing interest in integrating original practices and natural resources in contemporary art, which deeply connects with my research into materials and cultural memory. In this movement I see a continuum for my practice, in which I deepen my research into matters related to the botanical diaspora, the symbolic use of colours and historically significant materials. Moreover, movements aimed at building more diverse and inclusive representational spaces is an aspect that I see as crucial for the future, and one that fits in with my interest in widening the range of the narratives I approach, so that they encompass more voices, experiences and realities. As such, the evolution I see for my practice is in tune with this shift towards a production that intends to overhaul and redefine traditional structures, in a positioning between the local and the global.

Master in Curatorial Studies from the University of Coimbra, and with a degree in Photography from the Portuguese Institute of Photography in Porto, and in Cultural Planning and Management, Mafalda develops her work in the areas of production, communication and activation, within the scope of Photography Festivals and Visual Arts - Encontros da Imagem, in Braga (Portugal) and Fotofestiwal, in Lodz (Poland). She also collaborated with Porto / Post / Doc: Film & Media Festival and Curtas Vila do Conde-Festival Internacional de Cinema. In 2020, and she was one of those responsible for the curatorial project of the exhibition “AEIOU: Os Espacialistas em Pro (ex)cess”, developed at Colégio das Artes, University of Coimbra. As a photographer, she was involved in laboratory projects of analogue photography and educational programs for Silverlab (Porto) and Passos Audiovisuais Associação Cultural (Braga), while dedicating herself to photography in a professional format or, spontaneously, in personal projects.

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