Two Congolese artists in São Paulo, Yannick Delass e Shambuyi Wetu encounter each other in performances that we record and recreate. Here, music and art are moments of empowerment, subtle shifts in the visible and auditory spaces of immigration policies.Dois artistas congoleses em São Paulo, Yannick Delass e Shambuyi Wetu, encontram-se em performances que registramos e recriamos. Aqui, música e arte são momentos de empoderamento, mudanças sutis na visibilidade e no espaço auditivo das políticas da imigração

Chalcraft, Jasper

Hikiji, Rose Satiko Gitirana

Segarra, Josep Juan

English

Dois artistas congoleses em São Paulo, Yannick Delass e Shambuyi Wetu, encontram-se em performances que registramos e recriamos. Aqui, música e arte são momentos de empoderamento, mudanças sutis na visibilidade e no espaço auditivo das políticas da imigração.Two Congolese artists in São Paulo, Yannick Delass e Shambuyi Wetu encounter each other in performances that we record and recreate. Here, music and art are moments of empowerment, subtle shifts in the visible and auditory spaces of immigration policies

Cadernos Espinosanos (E-Journal)

300 São Paulo, v. 2, n.1, p.300-306, may (2017)JASPER CHALCRAFTJOSEP JUAN SEGARRAROSE SATIKO GITIRANA HIKIJIUNPACKING: CONGOLESE ARTISTS ON THE MIGRANT EXPERIENCE IN SÃO PAULOUniversity of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom.PhD student in PPCIS, Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, BrazilUniversidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.Abra os olhos (“open your eyes”). Biliwe.Open them again, and see through the weave  of a hessian sack. Photo: Rose Satiko G. HikijikeywordsImigration; Africa; Democratic Republic of Congo; Performance; Music.São Paulo, v. 2, n.1, may (2017)301New localities, old prejudices. Foreigners, etrangers: our ideas and our thoughts are less welcome than our bodies. Exploring these social realities are two individuals, two Congolese, one a musician, one an artist, Yannick Delass, and Shambuyi Wetu. Hav-ing have only settled in Brazil in recent years they were introduced to each other in SP by us, as part of an artivist1 movement.  Voices and silences. Muted mimesis and sung saudades are moments and spaces of empowerment, subtle shifts in the visibility and “auditory space”2 of migrant politics 3. 1. Artivism, as discussed in Raposo (2015), is an unstable concept to deal with the connec-tions of art and politics, when art is an act of resistence and subversion. Yannick and Shambuyi’s first encounter was during a meeting at the Cambridge Occupied Artistic Resi-dence  which aimed to discuss art, immigration and work, and to bring together Brazilian and migrant artists, members of the housing movement which occupies Hotel Cambridge in São Paulo and anthropologists.2. Feld (1996) and Born (2013), calling attention to sound - against the hegemony of the visu-al in social sciences - mention the expression “auditory space”. Our performers work with both visual, sound and corporeal expressions, making it necessary to go beyond visual anthropology or ethnomusicology, or at least, to put them together. 3. São Paulo, the most populous city in the Southern Hemisphere, is also home to the larg-est Arab, Italian and Japanese diasporas. African migration to the city (and to Brazil) is not huge in numbers, but, in the last years, it has increased significantly. In 2000, 1054 regular African migrants from 38 countries lived in Brazil. In 2012, they were 31.866 regular citizens coming from 48 of the 54 African nations. In the city of São Paulo, in 2016 there are 2055 regular migrants from Nigeria, 1830 from Angola, 431 from DRC (source: Polícia Federal).Photo: Rose Satiko G. HikijiSão Paulo, v. 2, n.1, may (2017)302Watch Bagage at: https://vimeo.com/220968672Making complex realities tangible, the artists attempt to translate their perspective of international politics and consumption for their new au-diences in São Paulo’s public spaces. A silent figure on stage, coltan-cov-ered, bloody-dripping cellphones taped to his body, an audience be-mused, a distant war and nearby refugees.Yannick’s guitar and Shambuyi’s chimera4 aren’t alone. A settled-mi-grant, Luambo Pitchou, an activist lawyer from Democratic Republic of Congo in São Paulo, tells the São Paulo public his understanding of his country’s situation through his words. All three of these Congolese mi-grants represent these stories in subtely different ways, ,reconfiguring how conflict, consumption and identity are part of the same problem.4. We call Shambuyi’s art works chimeras, associating them with two concepts: montage and utopias. If this indicates hope, dreams, fantasies and a privileging of the imaginary, it also implies “multiple images that, through associating visual indexes emanating from different beings [...] provoke a visual  projection which gives rise to an image that at the same time implies the presence of these different beings” (Lagrou & Severi: 2013; our trans-lation). Shambuyi creates creatures from different things and beings, as a way of external-ising what comes out of his head. The final form of the performance is unclear before he makes it, and so too are the exact forms and meanings of his creatures/chimeras. Many of these meanings are produced a posteriori, deriving from the effects provoked during the performance when Shambuyi’s mind meets the audience.Photo: Rose Satiko G. HikijiSão Paulo, v. 2, n.1, may (2017)303But our fictive chronology - the movie we’re making5 - retells this by weld-ing a later voice, Yannick’s, to Shambuyi’s performance and Pitchou’s di-course. Why? Are we closer or further from the reality of what all want to communicate? This montage - our edited reality - plays with the voices, images and discourses of that day, of its different performative moments and protagonists, to approximate something of that fleeting reality. What is the artist-migrant’s mimesis? What exactly is he copying? The shamans of anthropology tell us that mimesis embodies and subverts colonial power (Taussig, 1993), and for Shambuyi this appears to be true. Yet, theories don’t always translate, they don’t always skip continents as easily as bodies do. Shambuyi’s chimera mimetises the minerals mar-ket that promises riches but brings war to his country. Watch Biliwe at: https://vimeo.com/220968843He needs to save his lifeHe needs to save his lifeHe needs to save his life(“Ele necessita preservar a sua vida”)The film echoes the tragedies of being a refugee. And sometimes to “save one’s life” you have to keep silent about certain traumatic experiences. But, after all, what is left from the inconsistencies of our conscience? How does this affect a Brazilian audience? Is the artist making overt connections between colonial and post-colonial powers, and contem-porary African and Brazilian realities, or is he perhaps making it more simple for this audience, who do not know his context?Yannick Delass sings: “blacks in Babylon without access to quality educa-tion, suffering discrimination in public parks, shot by the police, accused of crimes that were never committed”.6 This is a very familiar description for the Brazilian audience. Cellphones and racism make the transatlantic connections, even if we don’t know the wars or the refugee camps.And our cultural intermediaries are more complex: later they take us into their personal lives and the texture of daily dilemmas. In a performance 5. The short films presented here are part of a wider project of research and filmmaking, con-ducted by Jasper Chalcraft and Rose Satiko Hikiji, named Being/Becoming African in Brazil: migrating musics and heritages (Fapesp grants 2016/05318-7 and 2016/06840-9). In this project we think of filming - as well as taking part in our friends’ performances - as making, since we agree that some practices of art can suggest “new ways of doing anthropology” (Ingold, 2013:21).6. Our translation of: “os negros sem acesso à educação de qualidade na Babilônia, discrimina-dos nos parques públicos, baleados pela polícia, acusados de crimes que não foram cometidos”.São Paulo, v. 2, n.1, may (2017)304that may mix the autobiographical with social commentary from the streets they interrogate the personal through the political. Fags and whores: personal vices, existential props that ease the uncertainties and stresses of movement. Our cultural brokers ask us, are we imprisoned by such vices, or is our common humanity emphasized by their seductive promises on either side of the Atlantic?But we are brokers too: this performance took place during the launch of the first issue of GIS - Gesture, Image, Sound - Journal of Anthropology itself. Shambuyi, Yannick and also Togolese artists and Brazilian capoe-iristas were invited by the editors to perform as part of the celebration. A relevant question is which brokers have power: Shambuyi and Yannick give form and meaning to as yet unfamiliar realities, whilst our words here reshape their relevance for our disciplinary and spatial politics. Rag-and-Bone Men (Catadores) was filmed in a space where African and Brazilian (mainly Afro-Brazilian) artists meet, Aparelha Luzia, yet who was really in charge of this meeting? As we broker each other, how do our respective virtues and vices interact? It is worth noting that the musical interaction between the Togolese and Brazilians was a little rough around the edges - disputing the acoustic space. This contrasts with the silent performances of Shambuyi Wetu and his chi-mera (accompanied only by the lamentful song of Yannick Delass), which suspends time: here interaction is shaped by interruption and shock.In this space of African and Afro-Brazilian art, Shambuyi Wetu walks be-tween the fag-ends of incarceration, in the scandalous silences of the unconscious. He picks up pains, uses them and exorcises them through smoke. Instead of just hiding himself from the danger of non-existence, he decides to go beyond the frontiers that the artworld imposes. And he asks himself for how long construction work will earn him his daily bread.7Watch Rag-and-Bone Men at: https://vimeo.com/220968600Shambuyi and Yannick continue to challenge our understandings of the city, and of their migrant experience. After Rag-and-Bone Men (Catado-res) performances shift to the city’s venerable art institutions, the Museo Afro-Brasil and the lived uncertainties of the 32nd Sao Paulo Bienal (ti-tle: Incerteza Viva). With eight kilos of fish, clay, and vegetables, Sham-buyi and his partner Clarisse Mujinga hack the Bienal, their impromptu performance countering the prevailing images of a troubled continent. Inside, they meet a public eager to engage with their representations of 7. Shambuyi and other artists in a debate about art, refugee and migrant labour: https://vimeo.com/169635430.305 São Paulo, v. 1, n. 2, may (2017)an abundant “Africa”. In one afternoon, the thousand selfies taken with the Congolese artists and then shared on social media solidly placed them in the public spaces of the city, even as they re-exoticised them. In the process of settling-in to this city, its localities begin to feel as old as the prejudices that continue to make life difficult for each generation that settles here. Our new etrangers continue to negotiate these streets, squares, bars, as well as our art institutions and auditory spaces, always trying to make their ideas and thoughts, their silences and songs, as welcome as their bodies. You who live safeIn your warm houses, You who find warm foodAnd friendly faces when you return home. Consider if this is a manWho works in mud, Who knows no peace, Who fights for a crust of bread, Who dies by a yes or no.Consider if this is a womanWithout hair, without name,Without the strength to remember,Empty are her eyes, cold her womb,Like a frog in winter (...).*Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz. Photo: Jasper Chalcraft translationJasper Chalcrafttext received10.06.2016 text approved11.16.2016 São Paulo, v. 2, n.1, may (2017)306REFERENCES Born, Georgina (ed.). Music, Sound and Space: Transformations of Public and Private Experience. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013. Feld, Steve. “Waterfalls of song: An Acoustemology of Place Resounding in Bosavi, Papua New Guinea”. In BASSO and FELD (eds.). Senses of Place. Santa Fe, School of American Research Press, 1996. Ingold, Tim. Making. Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture. New York, Routledge, 2013. Lagrou, Elsje & SEVERI, Carlo (eds.). Quimeras em diálogo, grafismo e figuração nas artes indígenas. Rio de Janeiro, 7Letras, 2013.Levi, Primo; WOOLF, S.J.; ROTH, Philip. Survival in Auschwitz. New York : Simon & Schuster, 1996, [1959].Raposo, Paulo. “Artivismo”: articulando dissidências, criando insurgências. Cadernos de Arte e Antropologia, Vol. 4, No 2 | -1, 3-12, 2015. Taussig, Michael. Mimesis and Alterity. A Particular History of the Senses.  New York, London, Routledge, 1993.FILMOGRAPHYHikiji, Rose Satiko; Segarra, Josep & Wetu, Shambuyi. 2016. Baggage. 1 film, 5:43 min., son., color. São Paulo, LISA. Avaiable at https:/ vimeo.com/220968672Chalcraft, Jasper; Hikiji, Rose Satiko; Segarra, Josep & Wetu, Shambuyi. 2016. Rag-and-bone men. 1 film, 4:39 min., son., color. São Paulo, LISA. Avaiable at https:/ vimeo.com/220968600Chalcraft, Jasper; Hikiji, Rose Satiko; Segarra, Josep & Wetu, Shambuyi. 2016. Biliwe - Abra os olhos. 1 filme, 7:56 min., son., color. São Paulo, LISA. Avaiable at https:/ vimeo.com/220968843São Paulo, v. 2, n.1, may (2017)307ROSE SATIKO GITIRANA HIKIJIProfessor at the Department of Anthropology of the School of Philoso-phy, Literature and Languages, and Human Sciences at the University of São Paulo (FFLCH-USP0. Coordinator of the Laboratory of Image and Sound in Anthropology and of PAM (Research in Musical Anthropology), vice-coordinator of GRAVI (Group of Visual Anthropology) and member of NAPEDRA (Center of Anthropology, Performance and Drama). Author of the books “Imagem-violência, A música e o risco”, “Lá do Leste”, co-editor of “A experiência da imagem na etnografia”, “Bixiga em Artes e Ofícios”, “Antropologia e Performance”, “Escrituras da Imagem e Imagem-Con-hecimento”. Co-director of “Violão-Canção: Brazilian Soul”, “The Eagle”, “Fabrik Funk”, “Art and the Street”, among other ethnographic films.JASPER CHALCRAFTResearch Fellow at the Department of Sociology at Sussex University, working on the Cultural Base project on heritage and identities. His pub-lications include The Making of Heritage: seduction and disenchant-ment, co-edited with Camila del Mármol & Marc Morell; ‘Decolonizing the site: the problems and pragmatics of World Heritage in Italy, Libya and Tanzania’, in D. Berliner & C. Brumann (eds) World Heritage on the Ground: ethnographic perspectives; and (with P. Magaudda) ‘Space is the Place: the global localities of the Sónar and WOMAD music festivals’, in L. Giorgi et al. (eds) Festivals and the Cultural Public Sphere.JOSEP JUAN SEGARRAGraduated in Journalism (Universitat Rovira i Virgili-URV, 2007) and in Social and Cultural Anthropology (URV, 2012, MOU scholarship). Master in Social and Cultural Anthropology (PPGAS / UFRGS, 2015, CNPQ scholarship). The master’s dissertation entitled “’Peace between us, war against the powerful!’ An ethnography on the Block of Struggles for Public Transpor-tation and the Occupation of the City Council of Porto Alegre” includes the film “Living in the legislative chamber”. PhD student in Anthropology at PPCIS, UERJ (2015, CNPQ scholarship). Interested in Audiovisual Anthropol-ogy, Political Anthropology, Anthropological Theory and Indigenism.

Unpacking: Congolese artists on the migrant experience in São Paulo

https://www.revistas.usp.br/gis/article/download/129448/129615/

Bagagem desfeita: a experiência da imigração por artistas congoleses

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Cadernos Espinosanos (E-Journal)