Maria Thereza Alves in conversation with Andrea Viliani, starting from Recipes for Survival

nctm e l’arte hosts Maria Thereza Alves in conversation with Andrea Viliani – Artistic Director of the Donnaregina Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Madre Museum of Naples.

The talk will focus on the project Recipes for Survival, begun in 1983 and now turned into a homonymous book, with a foreword by anthropologist Michael Taussig, published by University of Texas Press in 2018.

The project will be contextualised in the overall artist’s production.

An example of her working method is the project Recipes for Survival. In this case Alves returned to her native country, in a suburban area of southern Brazil.

Her aim is to give voice to individuals whose existence and needs are too often neglected. The artist engages in a series of dialogues and interviews, on the premise that in this way her interlocutors will be able to draw the world’s attention to facts and situations they want to make known.

In the book, photographs, stories and some recipes show the everyday life of such community. The result is a portrait of a place and a population to which history does not yet seem to have recognised a role.