Inaugurated in the 1940s to be a sumptuous hotel-casino, the Quitandinha Palace, in Petrópolis, will house from this Saturday (15) the Sesc Quitandinha Cultural Center on its ground floor, with free exhibitions and cultural activities for the city’s population and tourists. An Ocean to Wash Your Hands Exhibition at the Sesc Quitandinha Cultural Center – Tomaz Silva/Agência Brasil With an architecture marked by monumentality, the building is an iconic tourist spot in the mountain town, with a Norman-French style facade, and the interior decorated with based on old Hollywood settings. The palace garden, which has a lake and a wide lawn, is a traditional point of visit and leisure for those in the region. In a city that usually boils down to its imperial past and European immigration, Sesc has scheduled a long-term exhibition that proposes a review of the history of the country and of Petrópolis. Twelve artists and two curators, each in their own way, address the Atlantic ties between Brazil and Africa, the period of navigations and the suffering caused by the trafficking of enslaved Africans. Curator Marcelo Campos points out that artists seek to re-read the history of Petrópolis – Tomaz Silva/Agência Brasil The title Um Oceano para Lavar as Mãos invites the public to think about the black diaspora caused by slavery, and the artists’ objective is also to re-read history from Petrópolis, a city that before receiving German immigrants was already a territory of quilombola resistance. The very name Quitandinha, recalls curator Marcelo Campos, comes from the word quitanda, which is of African origin. “Making culture and art in Brazil can never be dissociated from the element of social responsibility. This, for us, is fundamental, to have a space with a horizontality that has not always happened and to bring black men and women men and women to this palace where we always have been, but maybe we occupied areas that are invisible. This makes us understand culture and art as a place of responsibility from which we can no longer retreat.” The exhibition includes 40 works by artists Aline Motta, Arjan Martins, Ayrson Heráclito, Azizi Cypriano, Cipriano, Juliana dos Santos, Lidia Lisbôa, Moisés Patrício, Nádia Taquary, Rosana Paulino, Thiago Costa and Tiago Sant’ana. Curators and artists of the exhibition An Ocean to Wash Your Hands – Tomaz Silva/Agência Brasil Founder of the Museum of Black Memory in Petrópolis and coordinator of the Promotion of Racial Equality in the city, Filipe Graciano is responsible for curating the exhibition with Marcelo Campos and says that the ocean it is the place of trauma in the diaspora, but it is also the place where people bathe in search of a cure. Filipe Graciano is responsible for curating the exhibition together with Marcelo Campos – Tomaz Silva/Agência Brasil “The cure is in the process of re-encountering this other Atlantic that is black”, he says. “Talking about the history of Petropolis is inevitably approaching a diasporic past that makes these black presences invisible. We claim these memories and these black presences that took place and still take place in the present. settlers [europeus], but before that, 166 years ago, Petrópolis was made by African workers and intellectuals. This exhibition thinks about and claims what was done by these hands that made not only Petropolis, but also Brazil.” As part of this memory, the city still preserves the Quilombo da Tapera, in Vale das Videiras, recognized by the Palmares Foundation in 2011. There are also records of other quilombola communities that existed in Petrópolis, such as Quilombo Manoel Congo, Quilombo Maria Comprida and Quilombo da Vargem Grande. recorded in photo and video to exorcise the energies of two ports linked to the trafficking of enslaved Africans, Casa da Torre, in Salvador, and Casa dos Escravos, on Goré Island, Senegal. “Bringing this ritual to a palace that, in a way, for a long time it restricted the existence and visibility of the black population in positions of subservience is very important, because it is a way of cleaning. We need to clean up these colonial ghosts, because by cleaning we can produce healing and overcoming processes. It’s a work that claims and offers a way out of this crisis that hurts the moral history of Brazil and the planet.” the proposed discussion. The Café Concerto at the Sesc Quitandinha Cultural Center, with capacity for 270 people, will host a program of music and cinema, all signed by black curators. There will also be literary activities and workshops. In addition to the exhibition, the program of The inauguration will have, this Saturday, a free concert by the singer Juçara Marçal, at 7 pm. The singer will present the repertoire of her award-winning album Delta Estácio Blues, with electronic music in dialogue with pop and Brazilian music. On Sunday (16), at 4 pm , the children’s public will be able to see the show Lasagna e Ravioli em Cinderela, selected by the Public Notice of Cultural Sesc RJ Pulsar.For the future, Sesc also plans to open a cinema in the Salão Roosevelt and a gastronomic market in the immense serve up to 10,000 meals in one night. The president of Sesc, Senac and Fecomércio, Antônio Florêncio, expects the number of visitors to the exhibition to reach 300,000 over the course of a year. The purpose of attracting the public is also to encourage the tourist development of the city, to generate employment and income. President of Sesc, Antônio Florêncio says that the objective is to attract more and more visitors to the Sesc Quitandinha Cultural Center – Tomaz Silva/Agência Brasil “Quitandinha is a jewel not only in the state of Rio de Janeiro, but throughout Brazil. Quitandinha is incomparable, but there was a lack of life in that area. We chose to build a cultural center so that it has daily activities and can attract more and more visitors”, he says, adding that the palace will be central to the Sesc Winter Festival this year. “The main focus is Quitandinha, not only in Petrópolis, but throughout the winter festival, valuing, showing and using this space more and more.” The new moment at Palácio Quitandinha will also feature Q Bistrô, a place dedicated to tropical cuisine with a menu signed by Andressa Cabral, a chef from Rio de Janeiro trained at the Alain Ducasse Formation, an international gastronomy school. The restaurant will be open from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm in the space of the former Bar Central, the place that received the first visitors to the palace when it was still under construction in the early 1940s.
Agência Brasil
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