In this video, we take a look at the “Chernobyl Project” as displayed at the galleries of the Americas Society, in New York.

Initially, Miceli considered "visual representations of silence," but her project evolved into something much more profound. Through photographic techniques to capture the radiation levels at the Chernobyl site, Miceli created a series of haunting and powerful images that detail the ongoing impact of the disaster, which occurred 33 years ago. In this video, we highlight her work, which was showcased in the Americas Society's gallery, converted into a black box to create a sense of immersion for viewers. Miceli's art serves as a reminder to consider the implications of the actions and to strive for a more sustainable future.

Spring Seminar “Traumatic Landscapes”, Escola das Artes, Porto, Portugal, 2022

There are places around the world on the brink of disaster, from nuclear sites to war-torn regions. But what stories and secrets lie hidden behind the veil of conflict or tragedy?

In conversation with curator Luiz Camillo Osorio, Alice Miceli explores narratives behind war and conflict photography and how it can be used to capture moments that may otherwise go unseen. She looks at the contrasting approaches of two renowned photographers, Robert Capa and An-My Lê, in terms of capturing the action versus gaining a broader perspective. Alice then relates these issues to her own work by examining minefields and Chernobyl, projects that raise questions about different impenetrable spaces and how the medium of photography can be used to tell their stories.

Key moments:

• The most heavily mined place on Earth - 25:47

• The convention of war photography - 28:11

• Contaminated landscapes - 40:26

• What a contaminated landscape means for non-humans - 41:17

As edited for the Americas Society, New York, 2020.

Alice Miceli's thought process and travels behind her radiographic installation presented at the prestigious Sao Paulo Biennial. In this video, listen as the artist explains her quest to understand and document various aspects of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

Video produced by the Bemis Center while Alice Miceli was an artist in residence in their program, developing the conceptual frame and preparatory work to start "In Depth (minefields)".

In her work in Chernobyl, the nature of the visual and its borders were explored to show how radiation escapes visibility while defining that environment. If a place does not reveal itself in the visual, the question then was how to look. By what means? The poetic as well as the physical operation of that work needed to reside in the capturing of the image, in the impression of a physical impact created by the means of radiation itself, which revealed a pervasive but hidden reality.

Continuing this theme of places that are impenetrable and inaccessible, Alice worked in minefields across the globe. Unlike the visual impenetrability of Chernobyl, the inaccessibility of such spaces is related to the depth of the actual space that is to be traversed and depicted in the image.

This video highlights the start of her research and the connections, as well as differences, to her work in Chernobyl.

Alice Miceli and Thyago Nogueira, director of the Contemporary Photography Department at the Moreira Salles Institute and editor-in-chief of ZUM magazine, talk about photography, radiation, invisibility, minefields and pandemics, and the relationship of these subjects with the artist's work.

Program

The Acts of Translation cycle arises as an environment for discussions and practices around a problem that today is posed as potency in the contemporary debate: translation, in its expanded sense. A notion that has its origin in the field of literature, translation can be extended to other knowledge practices if recognized as an act, experimentally moving the delimitations of the concept.

Thus, we propose to think of translation acts in a way close to what the anthropologist Roy Wagner calls "analogical extension of concepts", which happens when, by diving into the specificities of other ontological universes, we need to mobilize our own concepts to access other forms of thought.

We recognize as acts of translation internal experiments in literature, poetry and translation studies in which the way translation resources are operated interpellates the field itself; anthropology, when it is thought of as a procedure of translation through differences; science, when understood not as a truth that gives transparency to the world we live in, but as a narrative event; psychoanalysis, in its way of recognizing formations of the unconscious via difference and as a body that is foreign to language, demanding exercises in translation where the same language is assumed; art - in its visual, sound, textual, and scenic possibilities - when, for example, the very means, supports, and languages of certain artistic works seem to make themselves visible before the spectator, or when something untranslatable remains over the work, or even when the very place of translation, in its crossing of languages or perspectives on something, is inscribed as a poetic place.

The cycle is intended to think these acts in order to extract, from the way each one of them uses translation as a tool, its own method of relating to difference and, in this sense, a method of creation.

Curators: Bruno Siniscalchi and Maria Borba (Instituto Comum, Brazil).

Program

25/10

2:30pm Translation as an act

Opening and mediation - Helena Martins (PUC-Rio, Brazil).

Speakers: André Capilé (Brazil), Guilherme Gontijo Flores (UFPR, Brazil) and Paulo Henriques Britto (PUC-Rio, Brazil).

Artist: Leonardo Nunes (Brazil).

26/10

10h30 Anthropology as translation

Speakers: Marisol de la Cadena (University of California Davis, USA) and Patrice Maniglier (University of Paris-Ouest Nanterre, France).

Mediation: Maria Borba (Instituto Comum, Brazil).

Artists: Ayani Hunikuin (Brazil) and Louise Botkay (Brazil) / Jaider Esbell (Brazil).

27/10

10h30 Science as translation

Speakers: Mario Novello (Brazil, CBPF) and Steve Woolgar (Oxford University, UK).

Mediation: Maria Borba (Instituto Comum, Brazil).

Artist: Alice Miceli (Brazil).

28/10

10h30 Psychoanalysis as translation

Speakers: Joel Birman (UFRJ, Brazil) and Monique David-Ménard (University Paris-Diderot, France).

Mediation: Bruno Siniscalchi (Instituto Comum, Brazil).

Artist: Yhuri Cruz (Brazil).

29/10

10h30 Art as translation

Speakers: Caroline Bergvall (United Kingdom) and Flora Süssekind (Brazil, UNI-Rio).

Mediation: Bruno Siniscalchi (Instituto Comum, Brazil).

Artists: Cid Campos (Brazil) / Maria Palmeiro (Brazil).

Artist Panel featuring José Falconi (moderator) and panel participants Amalia Pica, Alice Miceli, and José Gabriel Fernández to discuss the interconnections between artistic practices, curatorial research as well as diversity and pluralism in the contemporary art of Latin America. This event is presented by Harn Eminent Scholar Chair in Art History (HESCAH) Lecture and inspired by the exhibition Plural Domains: Selected Works from the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation Collection curated by Jesús Fuenmayor.

Marcantonio Vilaca Prize, Rio de Janeiro, 2017

In this talk, Alice Miceli explores notions of visibility from her work with radiation in Chernobyl and relates them to current perceptions of cultural and climatic change.

This talk was part of the Transmediale series "Climate Change as Paradigm Shift", which focused on pivotal events that forever change the condition of being alive in a particular era.

The Culture and International Relations Center of CEBRI promotes the live debate "3 Generations, 3 Enemies - A conversation about arts, human rights, and democratic values" with the participation of: Alice Miceli (Visual Artist), Carmela Gross (Visual Artist), Rosângela Rennó (Visual Artist), Ambassador Marcos Azambuja (CEBRI), Evangelina Seiler (CEBRI) and Carla Duarte (CEBRI)

Programa O MAC encontra os artistas 13/09/2011

Produced by Arte1 channel, the series "Olhar" proposes a dive into the poetic universe of contemporary Brazilian artists. The documentary presents the influences, trajectories, and creative processes of artists.