"In December 2022 I went back to my maternal grandmother Voinha’s first address in Nova Iguaçu, Rio de Janeiro, the same place where we had last met in September 2018, when I recorded an interview to investigate the reasons behind her decision to leave Belém in 1945. Voinha passed away on March 2022, two months after I migrated to Malmö to start my doctoral studies, where this unpredictably became a central focus of my research.
This short documentary feature is a search for Voinha’s presence and a way of communicating with her by listening to the environment that once was her home. This attempt to establish an ancestral exchange is based on the knowledge of the soil, of the flora, of the wind and of one particular memorabilia: Voinha’s ever-present sewing machine.
This film is part of my doctoral research project conducted at Agenda 2030 Graduate School at Lund University and at Malmö Theatre Academy. Entitled On Ancestrality and Regeneration: Performing Decolonial Journeys, it poses the following question: How effective is it to tackle the concept of sustainability within the European performing arts context, without also dealing with the burden of Europe’s colonial past, focusing on narratives produced in the in-between spaces?"
Premiere of the short documentary “Voinha’s Backyard”, Friday 22 September 18.00
Talk between Iury Salustiano Trojaborg and C. Grace Chang, Saturday 23 September 14.00
The full program for Gallery weekend at Inter Arts Center can be found here