The seminar will offer insights into the creative process of Brazilian filmmaker and visual artist Aline Motta and will include a screening of Filha Natural (Natural Daughter, 2018–19, 15:52 min.). Based on her research in public and private archives, Motta will share how she creates bodies of work closely connected to the memory and life trajectory of some of her family members. In Filha Natural, Motta explores possible hypotheses about the origins of her great great-grandmother, based on a unique analysis of historical iconography and oral traditions from her own family.
Aline Motta (b. 1974, Niterói, Brazil) lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil. She earned her BA in Communications at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (1995) and a Film Production Certificate at The New School, New York (2004). She has had solo exhibitions at Sesc Belezinho, São Paulo (2022); New Museum, New York (2021); and Museu de Arte do Rio, Rio de Janeiro (2021); among others. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (2022); Les Rencontres de la Photographie Arles (2021); Centro Cultural Kirchner, Buenos Aires (2021); Museu de Artes do Espírito Santo, Vitória (2021); Bienal do Mercosul, Porto Alegre (2020); Museu de Arte de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis (2020); Goethe-Institut Salvador-Bahia (2020); and Museu de Arte de São Paulo (2019); among others. She received the7th Indústria Nacional Marcantonio Vilaça Award for the Arts (2019) and the ZUM/Instituto Moreira Sales Photography Grant (2018).
Presented in conjunction with Social Fabric: Art and Activism in Contemporary Brazil. Co-organized by the Center for Latin American Visual Studies (CLAVIS) and the Visual Arts Center, with support from Archiving Black América, Art Galleries at Black Studies, CLAVIS, Humanities Institute through the Viola S. Hoffman and George W. Hoffman Lectureship in Liberal Arts and Fine Arts, LLILAS Benson Brazil Center, and Texas Global.
