Artists in Residency 2020

In February 2020 we are honored to welcome and host Laís Machado and Diego Araúja, two collaborating artists and thinkers from Brazil. 

After collaborating on the soundtrack and in the artistic direction of Obsessiva Dantesca, a scenic-musical performance created by Laís Machado they founded  ÀRÀKÁ – Platform for Artistic Production, a transdisciplinary space for research, creation, networking and exchange among black artists (national and international), as well as the creation of contemporary black art.  

Àràká was founded by the actress, performer, graphic designer and researcher Laís Machado, and theatrical director, writer, musician, composer and researcher Diego Pinheiro, both artists performing at the scene of the Soteropolitan performing arts since 2010 The platform arises from the need to carry out two investigations, led by its founders. The researches relate to the Afro-Brazilian, Afro-Latin and African matrix, correlating them with the contemporary artistic and technological tendencies. Above all, these researches seek to think, and to focus, contemporary black art and its decolonial ethos.

Áràká is thus configured as a multi-artistic space, combining performance, theater, music, visual arts, audiovisual, new media and literature. It seeks to promote multidisciplinary artistic creations, exchanges and artistic residencies with black and black creators, national and international. The connections, from these actions, become one of the great characteristics of the platform: the conception of networks between these creators, of the diaspora and of Africa.

Àràká is a word of the yorùbá language which means "one who expands" or "one who illuminates himself". The name is also associated with divinity Òṣùmàrè.