Multiverso — Um Regresso ao Futuro

Multiverse—A Return to the Future
There is no definitive reality, nor absolute fiction.

Fiction allows us to construct unexplored scenarios, or scenarios conveniently left unexplored, offering us the possibility of becoming aware of or sensitive to a particular problem. Fiction is not used accidentally; it is used premeditatedly. “Multiverse - A Return to the Future” proposes the construction of fictions and, as a consequence, will address the limits of visual arts as a practice and their transformative utility. In its technical and formal genesis, the presented project will be determined by the public presentation of exhibitions by a heterogeneous group of invited artists. The greatest contribution of these exhibitions will come from the tension—that which arises from the amplification of the possibilities of articulation of fiction with the visual arts when these recognize the consolidated traditions of literature and cinema (identifying their mechanisms, adapting their practices, interpreting their results), and which encourages the collision of these creative universes.

In “Multiverse - A Return to the Future” we are invited to travel actively and simultaneously between the past, the present, and the future. The hypothesis put forward in the project's subtitle—"There is no definitive reality, nor absolute fiction"—of critically rethinking the past and constructing speculative scenarios that anticipate the future, becomes the key element for grasping the ideas that orbit the multiverse that the Cooperative aims to create, explore, and branch out with this exhibition program. With the past, the appreciation of the symbolic weight, the material legacy, and the iconographic representation of different cultures through the revisiting of their contours; In the present, a critical look at the fragile ephemerality of the events of our century and the impact they have on our planet; For the future, the collective approach to an artistic narrative that demonstrates the transformative nature of art, that is, art represents, through its critical power, an 'awakening of consciousness' (Herbert Marcuse, 1977) by pointing out the truths of the world and decoding reality.

For the execution of the program, the Cooperative makes use of adaptation—a recurring practice in film and theater that corresponds to the use of literary works for the construction of scripts and dramaturgy. “Multiverse—A Return to the Future” proposes to apply this tradition and creative practice to the universe of cultural programming. Fictions will be constructed, that is, parallel universes—public presentations in the form of exhibitions. Eleven exhibitions are planned, featuring X artists, who in their artistic practice respond to the intricacies of the fiction proposed in the Cooperative's Multiverse: an act of revision and interpretation, addition, expansion, derivation, and/or commentary. For the selection of the panel of invited artists and their respective works, the Cooperative's artistic direction used the following themes: Filmography—Science Fiction (period between 1900-1990), Fiction with Authorial Signature (period between 1950-2022); Literature—Facts/Fiction (Bruce Sterling), Cinema/Art; Design—Design Fiction (Metahaven collective), Design and Sustainability (Tony Fry). Following these assumptions, the project aims to present X visual arts exhibitions, X photography exhibitions, and X product design exhibitions.

This program will be developed in the various spaces that constitute the Cooperative's heritage: the Camera Lucida Gallery in the headquarters building and the Camera Obscura Gallery in the building of the same name. The objective is to take greater advantage of the diverse potential of each building, adapting each one to the specificity of the program presented, as well as the audiences it will mediate and involve.

Progress and social transformation demand a space for thought and action that resist the possible 'status quo'. With the presentation of these parallel universes, what is suggested in the Cooperative's program is not an escape from social reality and/or a separation between culture and society. On the contrary, this fiction serves as nourishment and critique of the reality that afflicts us. In this sense, the ideals produced by the arts should act within society as transformative ideas. Assuming that the visual arts, like other creative languages, have undergone profound changes, the historical context and the art system in which they are embedded have also transformed.