AFTERMATH - Graduate Thesis Show SMFA @Tufts 13

Thesis Exhibition, Laconia Lofts Gallery in SoWa, Harrison Ave, Boston MA

These sculptures are created in 2D, by drawing with the fabric sprawled on the floor. The sewing process is exactly like drawing, intuitive, fluid, and organic. Once the drawing part is completed, the pieces are turned inside out to be stuffed and become a 3D object. I consider these to be drawings that become sculptures.

“We are not at War with Vietnam" was a response to a critique by a curator who upon seeing the miniature green military fatigues blurted out "We are not at war with Vietnam anymore, honey". I thought that was a strange remark, especially since I am Brazilian and the military green fatigues are used regularly. I then made the piece using the miniature Desert fatigues and titled it responding to the curator's remark. It uses crimson velvet.

"Maneuver" is a commentary on the Latin American history of Militarization, concerning multiple North American Interventions that resulted in military coups.

"Middle Gray" is a Social Pyramid - it looks playful at first glance, but upon closer examination one finds that the top tiers are wearing much nicer newer clothes than the more numerous bottom wearing ragged attire. Commenting on the social order sustained by a majority of individuals living in poverty, or paycheck to paycheck who maintain a few wealthy ones at the top.

"Replicant" wears a dress that is repeated in miniature form. It speaks about our desire for conformity and replicating systems and social behaviors to blend in and succeed.

The Hybrid series sculptures lay out micro/macro politics and constructs in contemporary life. Ranging from the social gaps between nations and societies and military squanders, to individual wants and needs: gender roles and coding, forming a family, and the battlefields of love and sexual desire. These are recurring issues, which, like archetypes resurface throughout time and space, from the most ancient cultures, to our contemporary globalized reality.

These sculptures transport symbols of macro social constructs to the proportions of children's toys. Seeing the world from a miniaturized perspective hopefully encourages the viewer to doubt deeply set beliefs and feelings of impotence. It suggests a less fatalistic approach. The viewer is invited to question the importance and value that social symbols and constructs take in our lives.

The diminution and softening within these sculptures is an empowerment strategy, inviting one's thoughts into these complex issues with an entry point of new possibilities. Revealing the banality and fragility of social constructs.