The pandemic has suspended reality and devastated the normal. We stopped living outside and started living inside. Inside home. Inside the screen. Inside the unimaginable. Inside the possible.
Now, when the lights at the end of the tunnel begin to blink, as a result of science, signaling an exit from the darkness, it is necessary not only to return to reality, but to reconstruct it with expanded limits. After nearly two years of pent-up dreams, Festival Multiplicidade's impulse is to occupy new poetic and affective fields, which previously seemed imaginary. It's stepping outside the box and experiencing what the impossible offers us. Because the possible has already been done to exhaustion.
In its 17th edition, Festival Multiplicidade 2022 resumes face-to-face activities, without leaving remote experiences aside. Moving between these two formats, the festival presents a powerful program that embraces installations, artistic residencies, debates, videomapping and performances, always at the crossroads between technology and multiple artistic languages, between affection and techniques, between unusual sounds and images. The highlight goes to the French artist Maotik, one of the great names in digital art installations, who will occupy the fourth floor gallery of Oi Futuro with the interactive work “Bloom”, starting in February, the beginning of the festival.
The official opening – perhaps it's better to say spiritual – of the Festival Multiplicidade 2022 will be the performance “Aruanda”, a great “Roda de Jongo” for Zumbi, conducted by the sound of Caxambu and Candongueiro drums, performed by Companhia de Aruanda and guests. It will be a way to purify and open the way for the activities of this 17th edition, after all the hardships caused by the pandemic.
In February, Festival Multiplicidade 2022 will also host the Amplify DAI (Digital Arts Initiative) project, an initiative of the British Council, aimed at cultural exchanges, through residencies, between artists identified as women of various nationalities in partnership with MUTEK (Canada ), Art Lab (Argentina) and SomersetHouse (United Kingdom) together with the Brazilian festivals Novas Frequências and Amazônia Mapping.
The activities of the current season will gain a creative breath with the presentation of the audiovisual work “Unite”, by Danish musician Rumpistol, accompanied by his quartet and visual artist Marius Nielsen. With its pastoral sound and its hypnotic visuals, “Unite” is a work that reflects on the human condition and will be presented in the theater, as a moment of pause and reflection. The presentation is further cooperation between the festival and the Cultural Institute of Denmark.
The occupation of the cultural center by the Festival Multiplicidade 2022 will also extend to the theater in the building at Flamengo, with a series of “tbts installations”, recalling important moments in the festival's trajectory, such as the vinyl “Barulho”, the performance “Blind date” by Naná Vasconcelos, in which the late artist foresaw the blackout of Brazil, and the challenging performance “Máquina – Parte I”, by Gabriela Mureb, held in 2017.
Finally, Festival Multiplicidade 2022 plans a cathartic closure. Wait. Everything within the impossible, nothing more.
