From the Series - CONGOLANDIA, UNIVERSE IN DISENCHANTMENT BY THÓ SIMÕES
Here, Simões uses performance, which emerged in the context of European avant-garde movements in the first decades of the 20th century, to (re)think (re)structure and (re)read
African ancestral cultures today. Through body painting made up of graphics in stripes, curves and circles, the viewer is able to draw associations both with the Mursi peoples (Ethiopia), who maintain their customs and traditions in the midst of a globalised world, and with the adinkra symbols present in West African societies.
With the history of African cultures as one of the major influences on
his creations, Simões, by inscribing characters from the language of pixo on the bodies of the performers, creates a hybrid message that pushes the viewer to reflect on possible cultural resistance. This is about establishing counter-currents to arbitrary, colonising and
standardising tendencies, present not only on the African continent, but in all regions of the planet that have suffered the decimation of native cultures, languages and
inhabitants.
Congolandia therefore presents a fiction materialised through culturally "pure and
perfect" African performative bodies, coming from a place invented by the artist and
uncontaminated by colonialism. "There's nothing in our culture that hasn't been arranged. Everything was so adulterated back then that we can't find anything else that doesn't have an external touch", analyses Simões.
In this sense, the viewer perceives the artist's resistance to a culture based on modes of behaviour forged in external and westernised actions and thoughts, which block the bodies and minds of individuals in traditional societies that have suffered from the system of appropriation and extermination of colonisation.
Originally Created: 2018
Subject: Social
Material: Canvas
Medium: Photo
Style: Photorealism, Fine Art, Modern, Conceptual
