Video/Time-based work
My video work documents time-based performances and public actions to examine broader social behaviors and power dynamics.
2024 to present
Stills by Fabian Alvarez and filmed by Bento Marzo
Muitas Mãos Tornam o Peso Mais Leve (Many Hands Make Light Work) is a symbolic, participatory performance staged at the now-abandoned DOPS building in Brazil, a notorious neoclassical site of state repression and torture during the military dictatorship. To mark the 60th anniversary of the authoritarian AI-5 decree, survivors of the regime and families affected by state violence collaborated with human rights collectives to pass 500 pounds of rock salt hand-to-hand, depositing it at the building's front gate. Salt is reintroduced as a polysemic tool for preservation, cleansing, and protection. By transforming the audience into active performers who spoke the names of the disappeared or stood in defiant silence, this collective ritual reclaims a site of trauma, turning physical presence into an embodied demand for remembrance, justice, and absolute resistance against rising global authoritarianism.
Photos by Fabian Alvares
A HUMAN BODY CONTAINS ABOUT 9oz OF SALT
500 lbs represents AROUND 800 BODIES
OBA EBA FIAT LUX ET MISERICORDIA
2024-present
Filmed by Bento Marzo
It was an honor to return to the Sculpture Department at the School of Fine Arts at the Federal University of Rio (EBA UFRJ) where I received my BFA in 2004. At the Sculpture Studio, I created silicone and plaster casts that embody the importance of this place in my formation and to generations of Brazilian artists.
The video shot by cinematographer Bento Marzo is a love letter to the public university UFRJ and the iconic modernist architecture of the Ilha do Fundão Campus. The casts created in the Sculpture Studio are the narrative element guiding the viewer through hallways, classrooms, offices, the surrounding landscapes, and larger-than-life modernist architecture.
The Federal University remains vibrant and more active than ever, offering free high-quality education. Despite all the challenges to continuing operational, it flaunts a robust and diverse student body, where people from myriad backgrounds and geographic regions of Rio and the country converge to study, teach, and make art.
vanitas
2024
Filmed by Pete Salomone
This video can only be viewed in exhibitions or special showings
Influenced by Luis Buñuel's extravagant and unsettling "The Exterminating Angel" and Brazilian Cinema Novo, this performance for the camera is a social experiment. In its second iteration, the performers embrace hedonism in the face of the transience of life and the futility of wealth accumulation. The tension between servants and masters escalates as the feast progresses.
Pauca Paucis Performance for the camera
2022
Filmed by Aaron John Bourke
This video can only be viewed in exhibitions or special showings
Pauca Paucis, meaning a few for the few in Latin, is a social experiment inspired by the conflict between scarcity and excess in our global society. Twenty participants were fed for four consecutive hours using the Pauca Paucis collective stainless steel utensil sculptures. This video was lovingly co-directed with Matthew Barrieau.
Filmed at Factory on Willow, NH.
Sugar words
2022
Cast sugar, food coloring, and vodka, created at the Sculpture Space residency
Sugar words
2017
Anomia
2021
Anomia is a medical condition in which sufferers are unable to name objects or to recognize written or spoken names of objects. It can be caused by severe trauma.
Since moving to America Csekö has experienced a double feed of information from her two homes in Brazil and North America. Frequent communication with family and friends living in Brazil offers a vivid portrayal of the current political scenario overseas, while she has experienced the United States political landscape first-hand for the past 10 years.
Cseko witnessed both countries spiral into an overwhelming narrative of misinformation, and gross mismanagement, that cost an insurmountable amount of lives, as a pandemic worsened the already dire situation of pervasive corruption, as well as deep-set social and racial inequalities.
A sense of helplessness and loss of words ensued. As both countries failed to care for their populations denying basic human dignity and rights to their people.
The national symbol held within the flag became detached from its meaning. What does it mean to be a nation? What does it mean to be a citizen? What does it mean to participate in the quotidian political life of a country? What is justice and whom does it serve? Do we feel safe?
In early 2021 Csekö immersed herself in the process of deconstructing the Brazilian and North American national symbols, in hopes that by reconstructing them, new meanings would emerge.