You are invited to a talk, discussion, and film screening of part of the work SOAP by the artist Tamar Guimarães. The event is part of the program series Experts of the Undercommons curated by researcher, critic, and editor Tobias Dias, postdoc at Aarhus University, in collaboration with Kunsthal Aarhus.

Participation is free, but we recommend securing a seat on Billetto.

How do we cope with the global swing to the right? As the world has morphed into a huge web of misinformation and governing stupidity with divergent material conditions and costs what kind of terrain for art and culture does this outline? If YouTube and WhatsApp amount to key cultural forms of class struggle within this terrain what does this tell us about the current conjuncture of class struggle? Is it still possible for progressive artists and intellectuals — once again, or finally? — to reach the masses? To turn themselves into operative producers and thus dismantle the class struggle ‘from above’? Is there hope, but not just for us? Or is it time to bury ‘the left’ in order to reinvent a sense of hope?

In her newly finished large film project, SOAP, Tamar Guimarães explores these questions, as they were raised within the urgent context of the former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s disastrous handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. In collaboration with Luisa Cavanaugh and Rusi Millän Pastroi, Guimarães initiated the production of this essayistic work of fiction portraying a group of idealistic left-wing intellectuals and cultural workers that attempts to join forces to intervene in the world of right-wing propaganda. At the center of this gathering are discussions on whether it’s possible to create a telenovela capable of infiltrating the hegemonic far-right culture in Brazil by their own conservative and religious means. Or in other words: to appropriate the ‘opium of the people’ for subversive, anti-fascist purposes. Exploiting and mimicking the sentimental aesthetics of the soap opera, Guimarães thus critically dissects central problems and contradictions confronting any anticapitalist and antifascist cultural practice today.

At the event, Tamar Guimarães will give a talk on her work and present two episodes of the film (around 1 hour). This will be followed by a conversation with Tobias Dias and the audience on the pressing questions addressed by the film.

Tamar Guimarães (b. Belo Horizonte, BR, lives and works in Copenhagen) is a visual artist working with film and other forms of time-based media, exploring situations both residual and contemporary of art, architecture, and the institutions that presents them. She often works with actors alongside non-actors in semi-fictional films. Social commentary and satire are recurring themes in her work. Guimarães’s work has been exhibited at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2021); São Paulo Biennial (2018, 2014 and 2010); Kunsthall Charlottenborg (2017); Guggenheim Museum, NY (2016); Venice Biennale (2015 and 2013); Nordisk Konsttriennal at the Eskilstuna Konstmuseum, Sweden (2010); Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (2009); Gwangju Biennial, South Korea (2008); Guangzhou Triennial, China (2008). She has had solo exhibitions at Århus Kunstbygning, Denmark (2012); Gasworks, London (2011); the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (2009); Artspace Sydney (2010). She was awarded the 2018 Faena Prize for the Arts, Faena Art, Buenos Aires, Argentina and the 2014 Edstrandska Foundation Prize, Malmö, Sweden.