human rights defender hub

Duna is a platform for sharing practices and poetics. This project appears as a response to the Covid-19 crisis and aims to create a network using virtual space as a democratic universe, without borders and with endless possibilities. During the lockdown we can clearly see how the dominant system fails, sustaining values such as competitivity and individualism. As an artist and activist we can also realize the lack of urgent solutions in the socio-cultural area specially in some countries, like the ones we live in. By identifying these urgent needs we launched this initiative at the beginning of April to create with our own hands the measures we believe can be transformative for people now and potentialize their ideas for the future. 

Artist Ana Paula’s paintings speak about dreams, memory, learning, faith and love; she questions issues related to race, society and the place she occupies. She and poet @mariandarte paid homage to Black women in Brazil in their takeover of @projectduna.

Olá sou Paula da @casadecriacaomiranda estarei durante esse período ocupando o @projectduna fazendo uma homenagem as mulheres negras do meu Brasil. Junto comigo convidei a querida poetisa @marianedarte que poetisou alguns dos meus quadros e trouxe a força, resistência, as alegrias e dores de ser uma mulher negra retinta nesse Brasil.
Essa homenagem é pra ela e todas as mulheres negras

Quando estou feliz
Eu tenho sonhos cor de crioula
Quando eu estou feliz
Eu tenho sonhos cor de Luanda
Crioula
Recordação, a canção
Angola, libertação
Comunhão, canto, chão
Mão na mão

Um forte amor, alegre, dor
Primavera, ouro em pó
Filha, mãe, avó
Ensinou me o bê a bá
Do que é amar
E lutar pelas barras pesadas da vida que tem
(Trecho da música Sonhos cor de crioula de Mateus Aleluia)

Iroko é um dos mais antigos orixás. É o orixá do tempo.
Rege a Ancestralidade.
Que todos sejam abençoados com esse axé
Que ele traga temperança nesse momento
Ar limpo para respirar fundo
E a certeza que assim como tudo nessa vida.
Isso também vai passar. "Orô
Tempo
Mojubá
Orixá iroko
Você é meu caminho
É meu Dom
A luz que ilumina
Meu front
Iroko"

These are one of my favourite pieces to draw and the perfect introduction to @spimespimespimes world. The name Spime is made up of words Space and Time. I want this world to have no conventional structures of time. These surreal scapes evoke a sense of nostagia and futuristic hope. I want to invite you to a world where imaginations challenge the way we perceive reality

Hands are a recurring motif in art, often they are symbolic of the human body and mind. In Taoism, right and left have polarized meanings: the right represents the rational, logical, and consciousness; left represents death, decay, and weakness.

Hi! My name is Anna Menezes (@anannnanan) and for the next three days I will be taking over the page of the Duna project with this work that I call Rastros Edificados.

Based on concerns about what could be the movement in a static object, I produced results from the transfer of photographic film to concrete, in a transformation of two-dimensional photography into a three-dimensional object, entitled Rastros Edificados. An expansive game that moves between memory and displacement. This work takes risks, in the sense that there is its own disturbance that inhabits it, manifesting itself in its sharp cuts, asymmetries, displacements, the lightness of its cracks. The presence of these tracks, of places abandoned in memory, are the signs of an experience that has been lost and before which the image merges with what is concrete. The indistinction of the forms and forces that are enunciated here, culminates in the imposition of silence, resounding when looking at its traces.

Eu sou a Marcia Cilene, moro e trabalho em Niterói-RJ (@marciaclne) e nos próximos 3 dias estarei ocupando a plataforma do Project Duna. No meu trabalho costumo retratar o que me atravessa a partir dos meus deslocamentos. Minhas principais plataformas de trabalho são o desenho e a pintura, onde me proponho a investigar essas técnicas. Quando comecei a me interessar por pintura (principalmente em grande escala) sentia uma dificuldade muito grande em adequa-la a minha realidade financeira, por ser uma técnica muito cara. Durante a minha ocupação pretendo mostrar o processo do meu trabalho e como consegui formas de baratear a minha produção.

I’m Marcia Cilene, I live and work in Niterói-RJ (@marciaclne) and for the next 3 days I will be taking over DUNA’s Ig. In my work I usually portray what goes through me from my displacements. My main work platforms are drawing and painting, where I investigate these techniques. When I started to become interested in painting (mainly on a large scale), I felt a great difficulty in adapting it to my financial reality, as it is a very expensive technique. During my occupation I intend to show the process of my work and how I managed to make my production cheaper.

For the next three days, Duna project is hosted by me - Lithuanian based female artist Dalia Kiaupaitė @daliakiaupaite and my project Daugther of the Serpents' Queen. The project's source of artistic inspiration is in Baltic myth Eglė (eng.fir), the Queen of Snakes. Here I am interested in the environment in which two worlds meet - real (masculine) and nature / chthonic (feminine). #Žalčiųkaralienėsdukra is a multilayer project researching femininity and nature relationships in a different context from different points of view by using different artistic technics and strategies. Too much time "different"? Maybe... but the beauty and charm of the world are in the differences. During these days, you will be acquainted with visual art pieces created in mixed media and participate in a performative zoom meeting "Daughter of Serpents' Queen. (RE)MAPPING IDENTITY".

Before presenting art pieces of today, credits for those who inspired me and linked (without knowing) me to this challenging and inspiring way of research. @bekberger and @jitterhorse, without meeting YOU I would never have known that I have something related to nature in my life and that could be immensely powerful outcomes for my creation. You as the OTHERS let me feel that I have something special in the relationship with nature, it's rhythmic and life, vibrant connection via myths with it. Now I know that it is my power as the woman's as well as the artist's. Next credit goes for @nidaartcolony, where a work retreat opportunity was given for me and where the first pieces of art were born.

The five art pieces of today represent 5 of 11 pairs of classical opposites / contradictions arising from mythological consciousness. So far, leaving aside the very first one - nature vs culture. I present:
VS no. 3 emotion vs mind
VS no. 4 woman vs man
VS no. 6 low vs high
VS no. 8 moon vs. sun (Sunset)
VS no. 9 night vs day
In creating these works, it was important for me to look at what qualitative relationships both members of the couple have, how they develop each other and themselves through the relationships. Just as I create myself through relationships with YOU - OTHERS.

[dia 1 FORA DO TEMPO]

do início ao contrário
invertido
pelo avesso
do mundo

recados gravados com linha
e pixo aos que virão.

+ + +

fios são linhas que bordam e contam histórias.
assumo aqui que sou um fio de bispo,
herdei seu saberes e sigo dando continuidade
às histórias dos meus mais velhos.
eu sou um não-lugar.

...meus ancestrais costuravam sonhos.
@cirulo

[day 1 OUT OF TIME]

from the beginning backwards
inverted
inside out
of the world

scraps recorded with thread
and pixo to those to come.

+ + +

wires are threads that embroider and count stories.
I assume here that I am a thread of bispo,
I inherited your knowledge and I keep giving continuity
to the stories of my elders.
I am a non-place.

... my ancestors sewed dreams.

[dia 02 FORA DO TEMPO]

(EU VIM)
o nascimento
quando me percebo homem preto,
acolho e aceito.
e encaro todos os pesos que
isso me trouxe.

+ + +

bispo diz: "um dia eu existi."

NO DIA 22 DE DEZEMBRO DE
1938 EU VIM (bordado)
@cirulo

[day 02 OUT OF TIME]

(I CAME)
the birth
when I see myself as a black man,
I welcome and accept.
and face all the weights that
it brought me.

+ + +

bispo says: "one day I existed."

ON DECEMBER 22
1938 I CAME (embroidery)

[dia 03 FORA DO TEMPO]

meu corpo estandarte

* * *

eu sou cirulo e estive ocupando por 3 dias
o instagram do projeto DUNA para invocar a memória ancestral de ARTHUR BISPO DO ROSÁRIO.
acender uma vela e acordar uma energia que me ajude a contar os dias.
dias que não cabem nos calendários,
e por isso,
[dias fora do tempo].
bispo recriou o mundo para apresentar
a deus depois do juízo, no dia da apresentação.
eu, registro esse mundo em que vivo para os que virão quando o novo mundo chegar.
atravessado pela obra de bispo
aproveito esse momento de isolamento para me conectar com ele que também viveu um isolamento, em outras proporções, por quase 50 anos.
dentro
de um
manicômio.
preto
nordestino
sem documento
esquizofrênico
artista
mensageiro
guardião
cherife
griô
ancestral
@cirulo

[day 03 OUT OF TIME]

my flag body

* * *

I'm cirulo and I've been taking over for 3 days the instagram of project DUNA to invoke the ancestral memory of ARTHUR BISPO DO ROSÁRIO.
to light a candle and wake up an energy that helps me count the days.
days that don't fit on calendars,
and so,
[days out of time].
bispo recreated the world to present
to god after the judgment, on the day of the presentation.
I register this world in which I live for
that will come when the new world arrives.
crossed by the work of bispo
I take this moment of isolation to connect
with him who also lived in isolation,
in other proportions, for almost 50 years.
inside
on one
asylum.
black
northeastern
without document
schizophrenic
artist
messenger
guardian
sheriff
griô
ancestral