LUCIANA FREIRE D’ANUNCIAÇÃO
When will my hands become roots?, 2016
single channel HD video
3 minutes, 40 seconds
Kamloops Art Gallery, Open Gallery
On view during TNRD Building open hours:
Mon, Fri, Sat – 10:00-5:00pm
Tues to Thurs – 10:00-8:00 pm
Sun – Noon-4:00 pm
Luciana Freire D’Anunciação’s experimental video When will my hands become roots is filled with movement, as bodies attempt to connect and overlap with each other and their surroundings within a forest. As a starting point for this project, Freire D’Anunciação considered the word “displacement” in relation to her diasporic experience as it describes the act or process of removing something from its usual place. Originally from Brazil and now living in Vancouver, she contends, “As part of this process, cultural identity can be understood not as a combination of imported habits and characteristics, but rather as the reflection of how the new place sees the displaced.”
Drawing on her personal experience and the experience of others who were born and raised in Brazil and moved to Canada, Freire D'Anunciação questions how much of her experience in Vancouver accentuates her "Brazilianness" and how much her new "Canadianess" makes her a foreigner in her own country. Through her work, Freire D’Anunciação reflects on her immigrant experience of reconciling two languages, two cultures, and two art disciplines (poetry and performance) and how this informs her self-identity and sense of belonging.
In the artist’s words, “When will my hands become roots, I asked myself with some sort of urgency. I made this film with a desire of piercing through the lines that divide all things and become everything. As if I would follow an old dream, that is not really mine, or not just mine. A search for the ultimate sense of belonging while being whole. I appeal to nature, but my eyes still see things in their own boxes: hair, trees, skin, dirt. With the camera, I choose to fragment them, to reimagine them, and to anticipate their transformation into new beings. I look at my hands and fantasize with the act of touching the land and becoming roots, growing into the darkness of the earth, in a tactile and suctioning relationship with it, with its waters.”
Freire D’Anunciação’s work considers the body as an instrument of creative expression that can connect with others and with the world in a poetic and political way. Using performance art, dance, film, photography, installation, sound, and creative writing, Freire D’Anunciação is interested in the dynamic between spectacle and ritual, and the distinctions between the rational and intuitive, and the individual and collective. The video When will my hands become roots? emerged from a larger project by artist Freire D'Anunciação of the same name which included a three-day installation with evening performances at Simon Fraser University’s Woodwards campus as part of her Masters of Fine Art thesis project.
Artist Biography
For the past 15 years, Luciana Freire D'Anunciação has performed and exhibited her works internationally in events including PushOFF Festival, Vancouver, 2023; Brazilian Dance Festival, 2017; Vancouver Fringe Festival, 2015; Performance Biennale Deformes, Chile, 2014; and European Performance Art Festival, Poland, 2011. She holds a Masters of Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies from Simon Fraser University and has a background in somatic dance practices, contact improvisation, improvisation in dance, butoh, dances from the African diaspora, physical theatre, and clown.
Freire D’Anunciação has recently published the book There is Never Nothing, 2023 with Moniker Press, a collection of poems that make use of poetic language to document her own performances. In 2023, she presented the solo exhibition Soft Gaze at the Roundhouse Great Hall Gallery, the result of a year-long community engagement project of choreographing the Roundhouse Community Dancers and directing for the camera.
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Performer, Creator: Luciana Freire D'Anunciação
Musician: Alex Mah
Lighting Designer: Sarah Nutbrown Bourdeau
Technical Director: Taylor Janzen
Dramaturg: Aryo Khakpour
Installation/Set Consultant: Brandi Rawluck
Video Mapping/Projection: Parjad Sharifi
Video Projection Operator: Grabriel Raminhos
Text: Cristiano Lenhardt
Graphic designer: Raul Luna
Video 1: Cinematographer: Sepehr Samimi
Camera Assistant: Marc-Olivier Harvey
Performers:
Nicola Awang, Valerie Christiansen, Karley Kyle-Moffat, Rachel Helten, Nicholas Masato, Emilio Rojas
Editor: Luciana Freire D'Anunciação
Video 2: Camera, Editor: Luciana Freire D'Anunciação
A D D I T I O N A L R E S O U R C E S
Luciana Freire D'Anunciação
When will my hands become roots?, 2016
single channel HD video
3 minutes, 40 seconds
Photos: Frank Luca, 2023