Brazilian Author, Artist, Activist Marcus Faustini Visits Campus
April 28, 2014
Join the UNM Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the Latin American & Iberian Institute for a special presentation with Brazilian author, artist, and community activist Marcus Vinícius Faustini. Faustini will speak on "Language and Art are One: Art, Life, and Politics As Action in Space" (A linguagem e a vida são uma coisa só- arte, vida e política como ação no território) on Thursday, May 1, 2014, from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Ortega Hall, Room 335. For reference, please see the event flyer.
Marcus Vinícius Faustini is the author of Guia afetivo da periferia (Sentimental Guide of the Periphery 2009) and co-author of O novo carioca (The New Carioca 2012), which he co-edited with Jaílson de Souza e Silva and Jorge Luiz Barbosa. He is also a renowned documentary filmmaker and theater director, having received the Academia Brasileira de Letras (Brazilian Academy of Letters) prize for his work on Capitu (1999), an adaption of Machado de Assis' novel Dom Casmurro. Mr. Faustini has also directed theater pieces by other well-known Brazilian authors such as Clarice Lispector and Gianfrancesco Guarnieri. More recently, Mr. Faustini has directed the "Home Theatre" project. The venture transforms the home of three different carioca women, in three different parts of the city, into a theater stage. In November of 2013 the enterprise became a festival, having expanded into fifty different homes in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Also last year, Mr. Faustini directed the piece "Tudo ou nada," ("Everything of Nothing) based on the homonymous book by sociologist Luiz Eduardo Soares. Finally, Mr. Faustini has also organized the installation "iPhone me." The installation is composed of projections of cellphone conversations and accompanying images. It was hosted in the Centro de Artes Calouste Gulbenkian, in Rio de Janeiro.
Mr. Faustini is also a well-respected social activist who uses culture as means of obtaining social justice and agency. He was the Secretary of Culture of the municipality of Nova Iguaçu (Rio de Janeiro). In 2010 he founded the Agência de Redes da Juventude (Organization of Youth Networks). This project sponsored by Petrobrós, combines social, cultural and political activism. The goal of the Agência de Redes da Juventude is to help develop the ideas and talents of young cariocas from Rio de Janeiro's favelas in order to implement socio-cultural initiatives that will positively impact their communities. The Agência de Redes da Juventude encourages local youth to employ their knowledge to create and/or strengthen socio-cultural networks within Rio's "pacified" communities. Thus far Mr. Faustini coordinates approximately thirty cultural projects in six recently "pacified" communities in Rio de Janeiro. More recently, Mr. Faustini has also expanded the Agência de Redes da Juventude to six additional "pacified" communities in Rio de Janeiro, including Rocinha and Complexo do Alemão. In June of 2013, Mr. Faustini's project was awarded the prestigious Calouste Gulbenkian Prize in London, receiving 175.000.000 British pounds in order to implement the same methodology in London and in Manchester. The project will be developed in conjunction with the Battersea Arts Centre, the Contact Theatre and the People's Palace Project. In the United Kingdom Mr. Faustini will be working with immigrant communities.
