MABE BETHÔNICO: BR 122: NEWS OF TRIPS TO THE CAATINGA

BR 122: notícias de viagens à caatinga [BR122: news of travels to the caatinga]

“I was in Geneva going through the caatinga while translating a French text. The geographical distance was widened by the weather contrasts seen through my windows and created imaginary landscapes. I worked over the dry, flat and hot Brazilian ‘white forest’, while out there, the damp, snowy mountains or sometimes the cold wind of Geneva. I looked for similar days, but they did not coincide - maybe the same light or the same clean sky.”

The dissonance that guided the quest undertaken by Mabe Bethônico based on the work of Swiss geologist Edgar Aubert De La Rüe (1901-1991), from his expedition through Brazil’s caatinga, is the theme of BR 122: notícias de viagens à caatinga [BR 122: news of travels to the caatinga], which opened on September 3rd.

On a mission for Unesco, Aubert De La Rüe undertook his expedition through Brazil’s caatinga in the1950s, with the intention to map its mineral richeness. He found its cultural diversity while going through a region of inequality and misery affected by years of drought. The experience gave the geologist a vision of a divided country: a new Brazil that was undergoing urban expansion and industrialization, set against another Brazil tied to archaic conditions. About his travel he published the book Brésil Aride - La vie dans La caatinga/ [Arid Brazil – Life in the caatinga], which is translated by the artist in De como Mabe Bethônico percorreu a caatinga na Suíça (…) [How Mabe Bethônico travelled through the caatinga in Switzerland (…)], published by Edições Capacete-RJ in 2013.

The artist began a project by translating the book of de La Rüe, while researching the Swiss geologist’s archive, donated to the Museum of Ethnography of Geneva before his death.

This gives rise to the exhibition curated by Ana Paula Cohen at the Galeria Marilia Razuk. The work presents the traveller as a character who dedicated his studies to many issues within the field of human geography, as much as physical geography, such as street fairs and fences, alongside with islands, the winds and volcanoes.

The exhibition is a journey through an individual’s interests, while recognizing a caatinga, which is foreign to the eyes of the traveller and which the artist re signifies to the present.

About the artist:

Mabe Bethônico works in dialogue with archives and other institutions, with an interest for fictionalizing reference sources, making access through various means such as newspapers and books, posters, internet sites and lectures. She deals with limits between documentation and construction, evidencing how information can be constructed and continuously reworked, questioning truth.

The projects may extend over several years, such as the Collector (1996 -), or arise after months of research. The productions derive in publications and exhibitions and may be incorporated or built in flexible archives. She has shown regularly across Brazil and Europe, having won various awards and been supported by research agencies and museums. She is part of the international artists’ group World of Matter and has presented conferences in a wide range of institutions, within the academic and cultural fields.