Video still from The New World Syrup and the Fever Hand (2020, 24 minutes) a performance-lecture in video by Vivian Caccuri. The video was presented at maat (Central), followed by an online Q&A moderated by and Andrea Bagnato and Ivan L. Munuera, in the context of Vulnerable Beings (Assembly 1: Tuning In, 29–31/10/2021).
Vivian Caccuri: The New World Syrup and the Fever Hand
It’s ironic that yellow fever “chose” to come back during such political turmoil in Brazil. This is why the main form for the performance is that of a historical hallucination.
Vivian Caccuri
Shown here from 20 December 2021 to 23 January 2022.
Yellow fever was introduced in the Americas in the 17th century. It was inadvertently carried on the ships used by European traders to transport enslaved Africans. A disease of colonial origins was then made worse by the ecology of the sugar plantations in the Caribbean and Northeast Brazil – as cutting down forests created a favourable habitat for the Aedes mosquitoes that transmit the virus. After having seemingly been brought under control with public health campaigns, yellow fever reappeared in Brazil in 2018 – possibly a consequence of contemporary deforestation in the Amazon. 2018 was also the year that Jair Bolsonaro’s government took power, and epidemiological concerns were woven into the nationalist politics of their campaign.
Video stills from The New World Syrup and the Fever Hand (2020, 24 minutes), a video performance-lecture by Vivian Caccuri.
Vivian Caccuri is a visual artist, musicologist, and music producer based in Rio de Janeiro. Her work is dedicated to music and sound in an expanded field, usually reflecting and recreating well-established behaviours and sensations. Sounds that are somehow marginalised, unwanted or understated drew her to mosquitoes, and to the way yellow fever epidemics have shaped the perception of tropical nature. Her works have been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, Serpentine Galleries, São Paulo Biennale. She has been featured in ArtReview’s Future Greats, and in the book Remember Nature. 140 Artists' Ideas for Planet Earth by Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Vulnerable Beings builds on long-term research by Andrea Bagnato and Ivan L. Munuera which thinks about space and cohabitation through the lens of infectious diseases. In a two-part public assembly at maat – Tuning In (29–31/10/2021) and Sounding Out (26–28/11/2021), guests from different disciplines and backgrounds will come together for a dense sequence of lectures, dialogues, performances, screenings, and music. This is the first part of a multi-sited project curated by Andrea Bagnato and Ivan L. Munuera, which will continue with an exhibition opening in the summer 2022 at La Casa Encendida.
