Open to the CalArts community.
Disruption is intrinsic to the manifestation of every culture and throughout the history of humanity, artistic movements walk side to side with the diffusion of new ways of being, seeing, and thinking. There are times when such shifts are unequivocally marked by events organized by groups and communities to bring new perspectives into view, and to commemorate such events is to remember our own ability to partake in expansion, renewal, and inclusion.
In February 1922, the city of Sao Paulo witnessed a week-long art festival organized by artists from all over the country to promote modern art-making in a paradigm break from the previous notion of what art was and should be. Instead of sticking to the portrayal of a country marked by its colonial growth, artists such as Anita Malfatti, Di Cavalcanti, and Mario de Andrade chose to celebrate the plurality of the Brazilian identity.
A hundred years later, we take this event as a reminder of our individual and collective power, as artists, to promote new perspectives and broaden our society's understanding of what can be considered our shared culture. As Brazilians in an American Institution, we take pride in our ancestral and native influences to partake in this flow.