SIXTH EPISODE: «CONNECTIVITY, HERITAGE AND POWER»
For the sixth episode of «Conversas Diversas» we invited Marsha! Collectivity (Brazil) and Bonaventure – Soraya Lutangu (Switzerland / Congo) to an encounter where they share their experiences, practices and concerns. Marsha! is a trans collective based in São Paulo represented in this conversation by Audre Verneck and A Transälien, its title is a homage to Marsha P. Johnson ✊, their work empowers, informs and builds a creative economy strategy for this community. Soraya is a DJ 🎛 and musician, developing upon the uses of music as a research tool and sonic 🔊 weapon to confront oppressive structures of power, through the conversation she mentions her latest project ‘Taking care of god’ developed in Kampala (UG) produced by Arsenic Theatre (Lausanne) in partnership with the Uganda Museum.
BIOS
Bonaventure uses music as an identity research tool along with practical and speculative initiatives to connect her African and European roots. With a background in graphic design, Bonaventure has shifted her attention using both club and institutional spaces as a primary place of artistic research and experimentation.
Her debut single “Complexion” was released on NON Worldwide in 2016, and features a remix by label co-founder Chino Amobi. That same year, Bonaventure teamed up with artist and writer Hannah Black and textile designer Ebba Fransén Waldhör to create the ever-growing piece “Anxietina” (at first commissioned by DIS magazine and BCR Radio), that have quickly earned the recognition of major art institutions such as ICA & Chisenhale Galery in London, MoMA PS1 in NYC, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Centre in Geneva.
In 2017, Bonaventure released on the New York label PTP her debut EP “FREE LUTANGU”, followed the next year by “MENTOR”, released by UK label Planet Mu. Based in Kampala since November 2019, she is now developing a hybrid theatre/dance piece called “Taking Care of God” and produced by the Arsenic Theatre (Switzerland) in partnership with The Uganda Museum. in 2019, She was awarded a “Swiss music Prize” for the body of her work.
MARSHA! is a sociocultural collective composed of trans people who have been enunciating restitution and prosperity of transgender LIFE, building affirmative actions for the LGBT community since 2018. In this pandemic context, the collective has held online festivals, the first of which took place on the 4th and 5th of April, and with that 42 thousand reais were collected through a collective financing campaign, with the purpose of distributing basic food baskets to the LGBT population, in a situation of social vulnerability and guaranteeing subsidies, for more than 50 LGBTQIA + artists, and the production of the festival. To date, more than 100 artists have passed through MARSHA! and more than 80 thousand reais of capital were redistributed among the LGBT population.
