Luiz Roque

Attracted by the power of image and, in particular, by sensations that stem from the sense of vision, Luiz Roque’s work crosses different territories, such as the genre of science fiction, the legacy of Modernism, pop-culture and queer bio-politics, in order to understand the propose ingenious and visually sensual narratives. The plasticity of the allegories he uses in his films takes us through the current conflict between technological advancement and contemporary micro and macro power relations.

Roque’s works inhabit a space between cinema, art and critical theory; all within the scope of political dispute that is both real and imaginary. Furthermore, his works comment on the dissociative conditions of being: between the latency of life and respective bureaucratic definitions. In this sense, his works combine the splendour of science fiction – as a device for the dissemination of hypotheses – with resources from the language of cinema in order to present us with scenarios of social tension and complex public debates.

a bench in a dark screening room showing the image of a mannequin in the snow

S,2​017
Courtesy of the artist

Curator

João Laia

João Laia is the chief curator for exhibitions at Kiasma – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki. Recent projects include Masks (2020) and 10000 Years Later Between Venus and Mars (2017-18) at Oporto City Hall Gallery; In Free Fall (2019), CaixaForum, Barcelona; Vanishing Point (2019) at Cordoaria Nacional, Lisbon; Drowning in a sea of Data (2019) and Transmissions from the Etherspace (2017) at La Casa Encendida, Madrid; foreign bodies (2018) at P420, Bologna; H Y P E R C O N N E C T E D (2016) at MMOMA – Moscow Museum of Modern Art; Hybridize or Disappear (2015) at MNAC – National Museum of Contemporary Art in Lisbon. Laia co-curated the 19th and 20th editions of Videobrasil (2014–18) in São Paulo. Other exhibitions, performance programs and screenings were held at Parque Lage (Rio de Janeiro) Moderna Museet (Stockholm), Xcèntric / CCCB (Barcelona), Videoex (Zürich), Calouste Gulben, Kurzfilmtage – International Short Film Festival Oberhausen and Cell Project Space, DRAF – David Roberts Art Foundation, Delfina Foundation, South London Gallery and Whitechapel Gallery (all in London). In 2012-13 Laia attended the post-graduate research program CuratorLab at Konstfack, Stockholm and in 2014 was part of the curatorial residency of Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin. He edited A Multiple Community (SESC publishing — São Paulo, 2018), co-edited Daniel Steegmann Mangrané’s monograph Spiral Forest (Mousse — Milano, 2018) and published in magazines such as Flash Art, frieze, Mousse, Spike or Terremoto. In 2021 together with Valentinas Klimašauskas, Laia will curate the 14th edition of the Baltic Triennial at the CAC – Contemporary Art Center in Vilnius.

Artists