MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
April 29, 2024
This week we recognize Bia Gayotto, and the evolution of her twenty plus year “place-based” practice examining ideas of interconnectedness between individuals and their environment.
"The Towers Apartments, 2003 (above) was the first collaborative project I made with members of my community. For seven days, residents of a Pasadena apartment building were invited to create window patterns by turning their lights on (yes) and off (no) based on their answers to a confidential survey, revealing their personal tastes, beliefs and feelings. The light patterns reflect on the relationships between the parts and the whole, and on the importance of individual contribution to collective identity."
click images for more info
The Sea Is Not Blue / O Mar Não é Azul, 2009 (above) was shot in Terceira Island in the Azores, which played an important role on the colonization of the “New World”, including Gayotto's birthplace in Southern Brazil. The 3-screen video installation alternates views of the ocean in differing weather conditions from different points around the island, with a series of a hand flicks through photographic images that reveal my process in making the video. The audio juxtaposes sounds of the ocean with voice-over and English captions, expressing the islanders’ relationship to the sea. The work reveals the ocean as a space of interconnected-ness reflecting on issues of migration, identity and place.
O Grito/The Shout, 2019 (above) was a collaborative project inspired by Maria Felipa de Oliveira, a pioneer black women who fought against the Portuguese colonizer for Brazil’s independence in Itaparica Island, Bahia in 1823. Through multiple perspectives the video shows a group of women performing at the Convento Beach where Maria Felipa lived and fought. These resilient women belong to non-profit organizations that actively work to preserve her memory. The sequences interweave staged and improvised corporeal movements, with selected sites and natural elements used by Maria Felipa and other women to fight against the Portuguese invaders, including fire, wind, coconut fibers and native plants. In this group performance the women play real and fictional roles, paying homage to a black heroine who was at the forefront of the feminist and #BlackLivesMatter movements in Brazil. "The Shout" celebrates these women's spirit of resistance.
Forest Whisper, April 8, 2022 - present (above) is a public sound sculpture designed to amplify the rich but often unnoticed sounds of the redwood forest. The idea for this project came after learning that trees emit sounds at very low frequencies, which instilled a desire to listen and learn from them. Inspired by Erika Rothenberg’s 1984 megaphone sculpture that explores freedom of expression, Gayotto decided to make an interactive “mega-scope” that serves both as a megaphone and a naked-eye telescope, to amplify the sounds of the forest and frame its the surrounding beauty. Visitors to Gualala Arts Global Harmony Sculpture Garden in California are invited to place their ear next to the mega-scope’s small opening, close their eyes and pause for a few moments to listen to the forest. By actively listening and interpreting the forest sounds, audiences may feel a sense of peacefulness, and at the same time, reflect on their physical and spiritual connections with trees.
More than One, 2024 (below) is an experimental video installation features a group of women mushroom foragers living on the Sonoma Coast, who embody the invisible mycelia network below our feet. “More than one” means mycelium in Latin Greek, and refers to the vegetative part of a fungus, consisting of a mass of branching root-like structure. Although invisible, mycelium plays a vital role in decomposing plant material, resisting pathogens, and absorbing water and nutrient. They also help forests absorb carbon pollution, delaying the effects of global warming, and protecting our planet. Like the fungi, women are primary caregivers, helping to care for the well-being of our communities. With an open form— including montage, animation, performance, and a readers choir— the work stimulates sensory and contemplative responses, evoking the relations between wilderness and ecofeminism, activism and desire, above and below.
Bia Gayotto is a contemporary multimedia artist, curator and educator who lives/works in The Sea Ranch and Los Angeles, California. Her interdisciplinary practice includes photography, video installations, and books, and combines elements of documentation, fieldwork, performance and collaboration. Gayotto earned an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1996 and her work has been featured in many exhibitions nationally and internationally including Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); Pasadena Museum of California Art; Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA); Fellows of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Breeder Project, Athens, and Museum of Image and Sound, São Paulo, Brazil. She has been the recipient of several awards such as the City of Los Angeles (C.O.L.A) Fellowship, Investing in Artists Grant from Center for Cultural Innovation, Artists' Resource for Completion grants, and Individual Artist Grant from the Pasadena Cultural Affairs. She has participated in artistic residencies worldwide including the Banff Centre, Canada; “Threewalls” in Chicago; AIR Taipei, Taiwan; Lucas Artist Fellow at Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga and the Sacatar Institute, Bahia, Brazil. To further her investigations Gayotto has curated several projects, including exhibitions including her most recent “Bahia Reverb: Artists & Place” co-organized by the California African American Museum and Art + Practice in Los Angeles. Gayotto has taught at California State University, Los Angeles, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, and University of Southern California, Los Angeles.www.biagayotto.com
Image captions (top to bottom): ©Bia Gayotto, The Tower Apartments #4: Do you vote?, 2003, archival pigment photographs, set of seven, 17 3/4 x 40 inches each, made possible in part by the Pasadena Arts & Culture Commission and the City of Pasadena Cultural Affairs Division; The Sea Is Not Blue / O Mar Não é Azul, 2009, 3-channel video installation with sound, TRT 25 min., made with the City of Los Angeles 2008-2009 COLA Individual Artist Fellowship; O Grito/The Shout, 2019, video installation with sound, TRT: 11:30 minute, made possible in part by a support from the Sacatar Foundation; Forest Whisper, 2022
, redwood, 77 x 25 x 23 inches, Gualala Arts Global Harmony Sculpture Garden, California, April 8, 2022 - present; More than One, 2024, video Installation with sound, TRT 11 minites, made with the support of Investing in Artists Grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation; Portrait of the artist.
