Florestania 

The synesthetic installation invites the audience to disrupt the logics of everyday life and urban centers. A set of 13 hammocks made with buriti fiber by women of four Indigenous ethnicities from the Brazilian Amazon and one from the Peruvian Amazon are arranged in a nested manner, where people can lie down while, wearing headphones, they listen to sounds of a day in the Amazon. The idea is to let the forest take over their ears and watch as time slows down. The first version of this work was shown at the 15th Prague Quadrennial, and it is based on the concept of “florestania” coined by the crônica writer Antonio Alves, which is about demystifying modern anthropocentrism and proposing the integration of the human being and nature. 

Eliana Monteiro is an Indigenous person reclaiming her identity, director and performer. She holds a master’s degree in theater arts from USP and has been a member of Teatro da Vertigem since 1998, where she directed A Última Palavra É a Penúltima (2008 e 2014), Mauísmo, Kastelo, O Filho e Enquanto Ela Dormia, co-directed Bom Retiro 958 Metros and Agropeça and the operas Dido e Enéas, Orfeu e Eurídice and Os Capuletos e os Montéquios. She was part of the 11th Berlin Biennale with Marcha a Ré and the 15th Prague Quadrennial with Florestania. Winner of the APCA and Shell awards. 

Conception and artistic direction: Eliana Monteiro
Dramaturgy: Bruna Menezes and Patrícia Martins Montanari
Sound design: Emilie Becker, Gregorio Guirado and Kako Guirado
Set design: Rafael Bicudo
Technical project: José Fernando Sousa
Lighting: Guilherme Bonfanti
Lighting assistant: Teo Possatii
Video: Joy Ballard
Design: Allana Arroyo e Valter Ferrari
Stage design: Katiana Aleixo
Installation: Katiana Aleixo and Guira Bara
Noke Ko’i people hammock making workshop: Memi Noke Koi (articulator), Rave and Roni (elders), Vopa, Mema, Vari and Kai (articulation and participation support)
Educational coordination and accessibility project: alingua – Ana Krein, Giulia Fontes Gadel, Laysa Elias and Paola Ribeiro
Accessibility consultancy: Gislana Vale
Audiodescriptions: alingua and Gislana Vale
Recording, editing and mixing: Igor Souza
Brazilian Sign Language interpretation video: AHU – Acessibilidade Humanista
Brazilian Sign Language interpreters: Bruno Pankararu and Vitória Manoela Pankararu
Educational supervision: Luciano Favaro
Educational: Carolina Camilo de Oliveira, Estevão Lourenço Santos and Paola Verssuti Peixoto
Production: Leonardo Monteiro
Production management: Leo Birche 

@florestania_brasil | @lili.moonteiro