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Action 4: Step Out and Look Wider – Generation

I finished my Action3 wondering if the circle shape induce people to a more democratic, face to face, inclusive experience.
So I start my research on “What kind of collective “circle” experiences I can think of?”

Feelings: Feeling inside and part of something, useful, makes my body feels confident, respected and welcome. Thinking about my culture backgrounds and references makes me really attached and excited.

Indigenous circle
Roda de Capoeira
Roda de Samba
Ubuntu ““I am because we are.”

So I took a walk on my parent’s neighbourhood, where I lived until I was 17, to look for some circle shapes that could produce any insights.

The closest I got was a roundabout.. no hierarchy, synchronous and suggest some kindeness.
But besides that, I just found some very “stay away” signs, being very clear that no one should be welcome on that place. We are used to that, since we are a very unsafe country, but when you look it closely it doesn’t feel pleasant at all.

What are “welcoming” signs for you? What visually makes you feel comfortable and safe?
Usually a smile, body language makes me feel safe with beings.

Feelings: Muscles contracted, awareness, I shouldn’t be here. Sadness about my hometown visual references.

Next day, I proceed my research at a park near here, where I first saw some inviting places. Circle shaped.

Then a notice several empty benches… Regarding we are on a pandemic, and we are not supposed to seat on or touch many things.
But it made me reflect, why would I choose a bench to another? Which one would be more inviting for me?

I used some pods I found on the ground to make a circle around one of the benches.
When something is spotlighted or is different from others do you feel more or less attracted to that?

Do we need an ARROW to direct us? SEAT HERE sign?
Are we that submissive?

Nature has its own way of standing out when necessary and disguising as well.
Do we have these capacities? We cause a lot of visual impacts, on purpose?

INSIGHTS: How do indigenous communities sign each other where not to go or where it’s a very nice path to follow? Do they just tell each other?
Do they just feel? They have instincts and intuition much more developed than we do.
If we get lost on a forest, or on a desert, what internal tools do we have to follow a path?

Coloniality brought us this complex language and symbolic system that we are so dependable and make us so vulnerable.

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Action 3: Extending and Seeking

My action started from walking around the backyard observing, taking deep breathes and feeling grateful about just being there.

Do they compete, they coexist, they help or they just support each other?

Evolve permanence

Fruit tree (from cradle to cradle)
“The trees copious make blossoms and fruits without depleting its environment, once they fall on the ground, they decompose and the nutrients nourish insects, plants, animals and the soil. Although the tree makes more of its “product”than it needs for its own success in a ecosystem, this abundance has evolve to serve rich and varied purposes”

Soon, I had company! I decided to embrace the cause and let’s just enjoy the afternoon, play and make some stuff.

What should we do with these dried leaves? A costume!

So we made a “Omolu” costume for my son, Omolu is a orixá (the entities form action 1, from yoruba culture) And Omolu is a special one, he is the orixá that stands for “The cure” very convenient for our Pandemic moment.
I believe teaching little kids myths and other religion’s entities is a way of introducing non christians references for them despite their own faith or relegion.
Starting from education – decolonial practice

After that we start playing with the sieve and It stand out for me our necessity to “clean” our soil, and through classification, we select what we consider good or not, even to play with. So I thought about the concept of  “Clean / Dirty”and how we recognise soil as something that make us dirty, or nasty (colonial perception)  that’s a colonial aesthetic to disconnect us from nature and our ground, so sacred for most of native cultures. 

We played around with the soil, clay and made ourselves very dirty.
Feelings: uncomfortable! heart beat increases, not relaxed, let’s clean this asap.

This attempt to experiment “scaling up and out” didn’t work well, they all sank..

And for the last, let’s make a game!

I came up with a “Colonial and a Decolonial Pinball”

The colonial pinball, the fruit by itself…has to go through a linear, cartesian trajectory. Overcoming obstacles, to achieve a final reward arriving to a christian concept of paradise. The other fruits are stuck somewhere on the process or in the end, very happy for arriving but not understanding why they are even there.

On the other hand, the decolonial pinball is a round shape stage where all the fruits co-live together, helping each other going through obstacles, no competition or a place to achieve. As a game it could be an instrument or something to spend some time contemplating.

INSIGHTS: “Aesthesis produces and regulates sensations and is therefore linked with the body as an imperfect instrument of perception that mediates our cognition: (Tlostanova, 2017, p.58)
Since the colonially established a aestheis, can we trust our senses and feelings? Feeling uncomfortable shows a pre-concept or a projection of something?
Changing the media, materials and places we open up a range of opportunities to experiement and change your standpoint in some ways.
How to add JOY to your practice?
How do a non-linear stage, as a circle, influence your actions and behaviors?

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Action 2: Terroir

For this action we have to explore ways of communicate clearly with our peers first offering an food experience through diagrams and after cooking, showing the results through a silent presentation w/no words.
I first talked to Aman about his food restrictions and the availability of the ingredients I could use. We came up with 2 deserts dishes.

Brigadeiro is for sure one affective memory for birthday parties. There is no such a birthday celebration in Brazil without a brigadeiro. I believe most of non-Brazilians think they are way too sweet…but still, our favorite birthday candy.

Nowadays we got a lot of “fancy brigadeiro’s stores”all over, with different flavors and covers, the traditional one though is mande from condensed milk, cocoa and butter!
My memories of my childhood are full of parties with cousins, friends, family, cake and off course, brigadeiro! We would have balloons hanged, and kids running around, screaming out loud and dancing! Yes, we love to dance hahahaha So I made Aman a spotify playlist for him to listen while celebrating.

I am not a illustrator but I challenged myself to explain the recipe with no words. My first draft had 10 steps, and I just wondered if it could be more simple, because it was a very simple recipe. But I didnt want him to miss a detail, so SIMPLIFY was my first insight, how could it pass a message with less icons/ symbols as possible. After that, I was challenge with ingredients and repetitions, so I came out to a COLOR IDENTITY signals, and UNIVERSAL ICONS to cold, hot, fire, time.. I also experience INFORMATION FLOW and PROTOTYPING asking my parents and partner to tell me what they understood by taking a look at that.

My experience

Aman send me his directions for the Kheer experience. It was easy to follow his recipe, even though I’m not a very good “desert”cooker. We have a simular dish here in Brazil, called arroz doce and it was quite difficult for me to detached my reference. After dinner, I lighted up some candles, played a youtube song he sent and the whole family enjoyed the experience.
I agree with my friends from class, that having to register your experience make you loose some good moments of it, but still a great way to know our friend’s culture and research our practice.

INSIGHTS: What a great experience through screen is made of? What senses can you activate? How can you effectively communicate in a concise way?

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Action 1: Starting from Ground

For this first action, I was partner with Angela Dione and we had the opportunity to share our concepts of home ground and own experiences. Angela was in transit, moving from Sweden to Canada and shared her feelings and expectations.
We also have kids, so motherhood was such a connection and I would say we, sometimes, project our feelings on our kids. We feel scared, insecure, homesick, attached to family and friends …and come out saying our kids do.

My own concept of home ground is were you belong. You just feel, you fit, your body does. It’s not necessary the place that makes you happier or accomplished, but it’s the place your roots are.
Brazil is for sure my home ground and I feel very controversial feelings about it, I love so many things about it. It’s all about senses, flavours, music, art, traditional culture, dancing, carnival <3 ! However the same country makes me feel so angry, mad and sad, what I won’t extend on this post, because it goes on politics, social and economic issues.
This same mix feelings I feel about having a Japanese background in Brazil.

We also talked about how nature is the ground for all of us, it’s where we all came from, it’s probably where we all should feel belonging. That came back to motherhood again, how kids experience nature, are free of judgements and play with tastes, sounds, their bodies with freedom.

What I can conclude from all of this, is that home ground is about experiencing. Your home ground is a set of your experiences engraved on your own skin and body.

my insights framework
My son’s experiences on my mom’s backyard
root and shell at Itamambuca’s beach – Ubatuba
My son and a leaf
Experience of collage

For this Action, I chose a soundtrack “Um canto do Afoxé” by Caetano Veloso.
The collage I came out doing, reminds me a orixá, entities from yorubá culture and it shows the big influence of african culture here.

Um Canto de Afoxé – Caetano Veloso

Ilê aiê, como você é bonito de se ver
Ilê aiê, que beleza mais bonita de se ter
Ilê aiê, sua beleza se transforma em você
Ilê aiê, que maneira mais feliz de viver

A Song of Afoxé – Caetano Veloso

Ilê aiê, how beautiful you are to see
Ilê aiê, what a beutiful beauty to have
Ilê aiê, your beuty becomes you
Ilê aiê, what a happier way to live

Ilê Aiyê is a carnival block from Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. It is located in the Curuzu/Liberdade neighborhood, the largest afro-descendent population area of Salvador. The name stems from the Yoruba language: ilê – home; aiyê – life; which can be interpreted as ‘eternal heaven’.
Ilê Aiyê works to raise the consciousness of the Bahian black community.

INSIGHTS: Why do we loose our free (no judgements) way of making experiences as a kid? Is creativity connected more into that and when we get all the theoretical and educational background we become too rational and block most of our tries? Does nature have the power to reconnect us to that fredoom?