O evento reúne pesquisadores de diferentes áreas com interesse nos estudos alemães e traz diferentes perspectivas sobre as repercussões do regime nazista ontem e hoje. É uma iniciativa da Cátedra Martius de Estudos Alemães e Europeus e do Grupo de Pesquisa Qualidade da Democracia em rememoração da "Noite dos Cristais" (9 de novembro de 1938).

The 93rd issue of the institutional journal "Estudos Avançados" inaugurates a series of publications focused on primary and secondary education. The main dossier of this issue brings a set of articles on the teaching of humanities, area of knowledge chosen to open the sequence. Besides reflections on the current conjuncture of Brazilian education, the texts present reflections on the teaching of philosophy, history, geography, music, literature and religion.

The journal also has three other sections, with different themes. In the first one, Urban Life and Health, four articles seek to understand how environmental and behavioral attributes of large cities affect the lives of their inhabitants. The second set of texts, Arts and Culture, brings comprehensive discussions on higher education in the arts and reflections on important works of the last century. The last section honors economist Paul Singer, who died in April, with a large and expressive interview in 2016.

To editor Alfredo Bosi, the humanities face a paradoxical situation. "At the same time we have a reflection on the new methods proposed by pedagogy and specific didactics that open new directions for teaching, we face a depreciation of the same humanities by the technicist thinking that has been generalized in bureaucratic organs inside and outside the University," he points out. He believes that the intense demand for specialization generated by industrial and technological revolutions has hampered the balance between human and biological sciences.

This context, according to Bosi, fuels the need to think about knowledge in a holistic and problematic way. A starting point, for him, would be to apply philosophy as a methodology of any and all modality of knowledge. "The reader will find articles by professors who experience this project both in public schools and in particular situations, such as teaching reading to inmates or the successful attempt to introduce Greek and Latin to elementary school students," he says.

Bosi dedicates issue #93 to Paul Singer and Paulo Freire, who, according to him, "took their democratic ideals to the heart of the economy and pedagogy of the oppressed ones."

Dossier

Between 2012 and 2013, Ana Vieira Pereira participated in a series of workshops on creative writing and reading mediation at the Romão Gomes Military Prison in São Paulo. Pereira's experiences and apprenticeships in the period are reported in the article Sidelines - Literature Experiences with Imprisoned Persons, which also composes the main dossier. According to her, the work made it possible to perceive literature and the telling of their own history as "powerful mechanisms for the personal reorganization and the discovery of new forms within the field of language".

In the article The reform of secondary education and its questionable conception of quality of education, Celso João Ferretti critically analyzes the reform promoted by the Ministry of Education in 2017. The political and economic interests of the restructuring, the ideological disputes that were presented and the official objectives announced by Michel Temer's government are some of the points dealt with by Ferretti. He further states that he has given "special attention to the curriculum flexibilization and the quality of education conception on which the reform is based."

In the article Latin and Greek in a municipal school of Elementary School, Paula da Cunha Corrêa presents a successful pedagogical experience conducted from 2013 at the Desembargador Amorim Lima Municipal School of Elementary Education (EMEF.) Using the "Minimus" method, created by Barbara Bell, Corrêa has organized the implementation of classic language courses - Latin and Greek - for students in the 4th and 7th grades of the school, which is located in the city of São Paulo. According to her, in addition to language teaching, the project offers "diverse aspects of classical culture," to students, namely mythology, history, politics, theater, poetry, music, art and architecture." The "Minimus Project" is still in force and seeks new schools to expand its operation area.

Other themes

The first two texts of the section Urban Life and Health show the consequences of violence and lack of basic sanitation for the health of the peripheral population. The latter two present comments on the last book authored by physician Paulo Saldiva, current director at the IEA-USP.

In The metropolis and the health of its inhabitants, Helena Ribeiro describes and analyzes the general themes addressed in Saldiva's work. According to her, the book clearly shows "the problems that urbanization has brought to physical and mental health" of the inhabitants of large cities.

Article writer Fabio Angeoletto emphasizes that the problems presented by Saldiva are not limited to São Paulo and other metropolises, but to all Brazilian cities, in Urban life and health. For him, the conclusion of the reading gives rise to a clear but not explicit message by the author: "Cities, in their complexity, demand planning, and multiple academic formations and social actors need to be involved in this work."

Among the seven authors in the Arts and Culture section are former IEA Director Martin Grossmann and two USP professors that participated in the first edition of the Institute's Sabbatical Year Program in 2016: Dária Jaremtchuk and Lúcia Maciel Barbosa de Oliveira. The papers in this edition represent part of the results of their research at the Institute.

In the article Abdias do Nascimento in the United States: a "black art painter," Jaremtchuk discusses the 10-year period that the Brazilian painter has spent in the United States. According to her, the time was fundamental for Nascimento to reaffirm "his commitment to the creation of works aligned with the African cultural heritage."

In Oliveira's On Conquests and Tensions, in turn, there is a discussion on the emergence of new cultural dynamics anchored in information and communication technologies. "The current moment demands a non-simplifying understanding of the innumerable representations, contradictions, voices and silences that vie for visibility in the public arena," she argues.

Paul Singer

The last article of the issue celebrates economist Paul Singer, who died April 16, 2018, at the age of 86. Singer was a full professor at USP's School of Economics, Business and Accounting (FEA,) and a member of the first composition of IEA's Board (1987-1992.) Born in Vienna, he was the creator and greatest advocate of the "Solidarity Economy."

The article Paul Singer: a life of struggle and work for socialism and democratic participation, by Cris Andrada and Egeu Esteves, presents an interview with the economist in the year 2016. Singer talks about his migration to Brazil, the youth in the Post-war São Paulo, his relationship with the union movement - with emphasis on the participation in the 300,000 Strike - and, notoriously, Solidarity Economy.

"Only a few bring together intellectual greatness, genuine humility, and deep coherence between the writer and the practitioner," say the authors. "Paul Singer not only reflected on the violence of the world of work, but also devoted his studies to sharing it with workers, shoulder to shoulder, for years."

Clique aqui para a versão em Português

This presentation examines the practice of decolonising museums. It particularly focuses on the museum exhibits related to the Indigenous Ainu and promotes museal consciousness towards the issue of decolonising Ainu culture.

Ainu, the earliest settlers of northern Japan, had been colonised and marginalised by the Japanese for centuries. They were also collected, exhibited, and subjected to othering in expositions and museum exhibitions. Meanwhile, the Ainu people themselves created some collections as part of their ethnic movement. The Ainu hosts also organised ethnic tourism in the Ainu settlements.

In 2020, the Upopoy National Ainu Museum and Park opened as the first national museum specialising in Ainu culture. While the movement to establish a national museum had started earlier, it became part of the government’s campaign to showcase the diversity of Japanese culture to the international audience only after Japan’s bid for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The museum adopted various methods to decolonise the earlier representation of Ainu culture. However, since its opening, the museum received much criticism, especially due to its approach to storytelling from a first-person perspective of the Ainu. Museum exhibitions are media that convey the museums’ messages directly to the audience; they are also sites of tension, negotiation, and contestation among the stakeholders.

Accordingly, this presentation aims to analyse the aforementioned process in which the complexity of decolonising museums is at stake. It will also assess other museum exhibits on Ainu culture for comparison and measure how museum practices have changed over time.

Presenter:

Mariko Murata (Kansai University)

Mediator:

Ilana Goldstein (Federal University of São Paulo)

Debaters:

Michiko Okano (Federal University of São Paulo)
Sandra Mara Salles (Afro Brasil Museum)
Susilene Elias de Melo (Worikg Museum)
Suzenalson da Silva Santos (Kanindé Museum)

Free and public event | No registration required
Online and on-site event | No attendance certification will be provided
The event will be held in English and there will be simultaneous translation into Portuguese | Live transmission at http://www.iea.usp.br/aovivo

Organization

IEA's Research Group Fórum Permanente: Cultural System Between Public and Private

Partner

Olavo Setubal Chair of Art, Culture, and Science

Eliana Sousa Silva: "I think it is fundamental to think of my insertion at USP space from the recognition of the power that the peripheries and favelas bring as their essence"

"Together we will make an opportunity out of this experience at USP, which will contribute to the university being more open, more democratic, more black and peripheral." It was with this statement that educator and social activist Eliane Sousa Silva, founder and director of the Tide Development Network, concluded her inaugural address as holder of the Olavo Setubal Chair of Art, Culture and Science in 2018, during a ceremony at USP's University Council Room on March 27. The chair is based at the IEA and is the result of a partnership between the Institute and Itaú Cultural.

Taken by emotion, the professor recalled the death of her friend Marielle Franco, a city councilwoman brutally murdered on March 14 in Rio de Janeiro. For Silva, who like Franco grew up in the Favela da Maré, the chair is an opportunity to contribute to "the struggle for many other Marielles to emerge and to live in fullness, joy and freedom."

Franco has been a "forged" leadership from the work begun by Silva and her companions at Maré in the "most basic rights struggles." She was a pre-college student of a course created by Silva's activist group in the favela in 1997.

"She was, like many young people from Maré and from so many peripheries, someone who dared to take up flags of struggles that faced the inequalities that characterize us. Her choice was for the parliamentary path and in only one year she showed her strength and convictions. We have to engage as a society so that this crime is cleared up and the culprits blamed."

Academic insertion

Silva said that the invitation to take on the chair at the end of 2017 surprised her and came exactly the year she retired from UFRJ after 30 years of work at the institution. "My last two activities are the ones that mostly synthesized the greater sense of my insertion in an academic space: the creation of an area within the Dean of Extension called the University-Community Integration Division, and the coordination of a specialization course in public security, aimed at professionals of the police apparatus."

These activities allowed her to "elucidate the political-pedagogical role that the university can fulfill in its engagement with the real demands of Brazilian society." This led her to consider that working in the chair could be an opportunity to think "the relationship of proximity that must exist between what is produced at USP and the demands of society, in particular the favelas and peripheries."

She affirmed that the peripheries bring "the capacity for inventiveness and resilience," in their essence, "being urgent to go beyond the traditional representations regarding these populations, which are recurrently focused on the idea of lack and absence."

Axes for citizenship

Before Silva's speech, dance critic and researcher Helena Katz, a professor at the Post-Graduation Program in Communication and Semiotics at PUC-SP, gave the address to the new chairholder.

Katz talked about Silva's life and militancy trajectory, and highlighted the five axes necessary for full citizenship formulated by the professor over the several years of work at Maré:

• education, "a fundamental component for autonomy, already present in that first pre-college course;"
• art and culture, "in which I highlight the Maré Arts Center, a place created in partnership with choreographer Lia Rodrigues, who develops the forms of autonomy that dance can promote in communities such as that with an improvingly palpable success;"
• communication, "such as the production of the newspaper 'Maré de Noticias,' distributed door-to-door and free of charge;"
• territorial development: "the right to an address and a ZIP code, with the production of a street guide, bringing the possibility of an inhabitant of Maré to, for example, buy a refrigerator and have it delivered to their house;"
• public security: "a taboo subject in a place where everyone is afraid of the police and the State."

USP's President Vahan Agopyan and Olavo Setubal's daughter Maria Alice Setubal (right) have honored the inauguration of the new chairholder

Silva's inauguration has been honored by educator Maria Alice Setubal, daughter of the chair's patron and president of the Tide Setubal Foundation. "Eliana is a person who can stand firmly and build bridges so that we can do things together to show the powers of the peripheries," she said.

The chair's general coordinator, Martin Grossmann, former director of the IEA, said that Silva's presence made USP approach Maré "to learn from those who have the experience of living in an area of permanent conflict." For him, although the university has another rhythm to work, according to the needs of research and analysis, "it can no longer be out of step with the demands of society."

New leaderships

Grossmann has emphasized the professors' concern to support new leaderships, an objective also present in another activity of the initiative: the support for young researchers. As sponsor of the chair, Itaú Cultural suppported the first Intercontinental Academia in 2015/2016, a project developed under UBIAS network, which brings together institutes for advanced study linked to universities from all continents.

Eduardo Saron, director of Itaú Cultural, has affirmed that Silva's choice to take on the chair this year represents a special symbolic aspect due to the fact that 2018 marks the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, "when, for the first time, culture was considered a right alongside health, education and other areas."

For him, one of the most striking features of Silva's cultural work is the dialogue between the production and internal interests of Maré with the external artistic production. "The democratization of access is important, but what is the most relevant is the exchange in which the contact to external repertoires matters more than the artistic making itself."

The inauguration of Silva also marked the closing of architect and graphic designer Ricardo Ohtake as chairholder. Having attended the ceremony, he said that the work that Silva helped to develop at Maré made "the cultural rise of the periphery" possible "and acquired political contours, leading to what happened with Marielle Franco."

Ohtake has briefly reported on the cycle of seminars and the course for cultural managers he coordinated throughout 2017. The focus of both activities was the process of creating cultural institutions from the post-war period, especially in São Paulo, the performance of outstanding cultural managers of the period, and outstanding exhibitions for the artistic renovation of the country. He said that the work will be concluded with the launch of a book on the seminars by the end of 2018.

The process of choosing who would hold the chair in 2018 was not easy, according to IEA's director Paulo Saldiva. "While thinking about the course we would give to the chair, we tried to think of some contribution that would make us better and give us the strenght to stimulate changes in society." The presence of Silva will reach young people, in his opinion.

At the ceremony closing, USP's President Vahan Agopyan said that Silva's generation is able to achieve greater progress than the previous generation's improvements to the country and said it is "an honor for USP to have a person with his capacity and conviction as a partner."

"Now, with Eliana's presence, we will see art and culture being disseminated throughout the urban context, showing that this is possible, and that we can improve the country through art and culture," he stated. Agopyan has also highlighted the fact that Silva considers education, and art and culture two of the priority axes for full citizenship: "Until these priorities are established, the country will not be what we want."

Photos: Leonor Calasans / IEA-USP

Throughout much of the 20th century, "there was no region or individual not living under the cloud of dream and gunpowder" that was formed in Russia in 1917, according to Bruno Barreto Gomide, a professor of Russian literature at USP's Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Literature, and Human Sciences (FFLCH).

Various aspects of the cultural, political and social history of the Russian Revolution have been analyzed in a dossier organized by Gomide for issue 91 of the journal "Estudos Avançados", launched this month.

With contributions of researchers from the United Kingdom, Brazil and Argentina, "Centenary of the Russian Revolution" consists of one part dedicated to the sphere of culture, ideas and art, and another focused on the political and social history of the revolution.

In the first section, Galin Tihanov, from the University of London's Queen Mary College, addresses issues of the Russian-Soviet intellectual history that are "rarely attended by Brazilian scholars," according to Gomide, such as language theories and Eurosianism, and proposes a redefinition of the place of intellectual currents such as Marxism and Slavophilism in the course of the Soviet period. Evgeny Dobrenko, from the University of Sheffield, discusses the history of Soviet art and cultural institutions, and critically analyzes the deployment and significance of socialist realism. Andrea Gullotta, from the University of Glasgow, outlines a detailed panorama of the literature produced in the gulag, a system of labour camps maintained in the Soviet Union.

The second part of the dossier opens with a report by Martín Baña, from the University of Buenos Aires, on the main historiographical trends regarding the political-social aspects of the revolution, such as the "political sovietology of the Cold War, the fundamental contribution offered by the revisionist strand of social history from the 1970s onwards, and the "cultural turnaround," which is a strong vein of recent studies." The dossier ends with articles by Daniel Aarão Reis, from the Fluminense Federal University, and Lincoln Secco, from FFLCH-USP, on some key moments of the revolutionary cycles of 1905 and 1921.

Urbanism

"Urbanism, Society and Culture" is the theme of the second set of texts of the issue. The dossier was organized by architect and graphic designer Ricardo Ohtake, director of the Tomie Ohtake Institute and current holder of the Olavo Setubal Chair of Art, Culture and Science, a partnership between the IEA and the Itaú Cultural Institute.

For the constitution of this thematic section, the starting point was to consider that the discussion about Brazilian cities "could and should" permeate the contact between urbanism and different fields of knowledge, according to Ohtake.

This is why the essays explore "the possibilities of historical and critical reflection on the fields of urbanism, art and culture," from four thematic axes: the construction of the city, the historical dimension of human action in the city, the city as synthesis of knowledge, and the future of the Brazilian city. These four themes respectively feature the articles by Daniel Corsi, Lilia Moritz Schwarcz, Priscyla Gomes, and Nelson Brissac Peixoto.

Psychoanalysis

According to the editor of the journal, Alfredo Bosi, the third dossier of the issue, entitled "Psychoanalysis and Culture," with articles by Nelson da Silva Junior, Christian Ingo Lenz Dunker, Vladimir Safatle and Pedro Ambra, "illustrates the breadth of interactions between psychoanalysis and culture, confirming the fruitfulness of psychoanalytic methods applied to human sciences and literature."

The articles discuss the changing of the place and social functioning of science in culture, the narratives of suffering in the Brazilian literature of the current decade, the political implications of transference concepts, analytic act and subjective destitution as elaborated by Jacques Lacan from the 1960s, and the possibility of determining the symbolic character of gender identity processes from the constitution of alliance groups and policies.

The issue also has six other texts: a testimony by anthropologist Betty Mindlin on Ecléa Bosi, a professor emeritus from USP's Institute of Psychology (IP) who died on July 10, an article on engineering of complex systems, an analysis of illness indicators in higher education due to the overload of work, and reviews of the books "Should We Fear Russia," by Dmitri Trenin, "O Mundo Sitiado – A Poesia Brasileira e a Segunda Guerra Mundial," by Murilo Marcondes, and "Desdizer e Antes," by Antonio Carlos Sechin.

The list below contains the names of the authors who have contributed with each one of the addressed themes:

Centenary of the Russian Revolution

Bruno Barreto Gomide
Galin Tihanov
Evgeny Dobrenko
Andrea Gullotta
Martín Baña
Daniel Aarão Reis
Lincoln Secco

Urbanism, Society and Culture

Ricardo Ohtake
Daniel Corsi
Lilia Moritz Schwarcz
Priscyla Gomes
Nelson Brissac Peixoto

Psychoanalysis and Culture

Nelson da Silva Junior
Christian Ingo Lenz Dunker
Vladimir Safatle
Pedro Ambra

Additional Articles

José Roberto Castilho Piqueira and Sérgio Mascarenhas de Oliveira
Celina Hoffmann, Roselaine Ruviaro Zanini, Gilnei Luiz de Moura, Vânia Medianeira Flores Costa and Emanuelly Comoretto

Testimony

Betty Mindlin

Reviews

Lenina Pomeranz
Betina Bischof
Marcos Pasche

A group of political scientists, sociologists, journalists and social activists have gathered for a documentary that helps telling part of the story of the conquest of human rights in São Paulo. To be launched next December 10 on Videocamp (English subtitles available), the film ‘Human Rights Mapping’ brings together testimonies and images to show that many of the current rights are the result of demonstrations and interventions by the population on the streets of Brazilian cities, instead of State actions. Subtitles in English will be available.

Conceived by members of the UNESCO Chair on Education for Peace, Human Rights, Democracy and Tolerance, based at the Institute of Advanced Studies (IEA) of the University of São Paulo (USP), the documentary has been produced by Imagina Coletivo and directed by Tiago Pereira. It shows the relation of the city with the struggles for the recognition and effectiveness of the equality of race, sex, gender, the fight for the right to vote, the struggle for housing and freedom of expression, among others. The UNESCO Chair was active at the IEA from April 1996 to October 2014.

The 26-minute film splits the testimonies and reports into themes related to the right to the city, rights of migrants, non-racial, gender and sex discrimination, right to work, civil rights, the rule of law and freedom of expression.

In order to tell the stories and analyze the importance of preserving the memory of such movements, many specialists have been heard: jurist José Gregori; journalist Sérgio Gomes; physicist Dina Lida Kinoshita; the leader of the ‘Housing Movement of the Center’ (Movimento de Moradia do Centro – MMC), Luiz Gonzaga da Silva, known as Gegê; Letícia Cardoso and Marcelo Hotimsky, from the Free Pass Movement (Movimento Passe Livre); Paulo Illes, from the Center for Human Rights and Immigrant Citizenship; Douglas Belchior and Milton Barbosa, both representatives of the black movement; Marcos Tupã and Jerá Giselda, from the Tenondé Porã Indigenous Lands; Waldemar Rossi, speaking of the ‘Unified Workers' Central’ (Central Única dos Trabalhadores – CUT) and the Osasco Strikes; Maria Amélia de Almeida Teles, from the Women’s Union of São Paulo and the newspaper Brasil Mulher; 'Rebeca', from the ‘March of the Bums’ (Marcha das Vadias); Fernando Quaresma, president of the LGBT Pride Parade Association; Margarida Genevois, from the Justice and Peace Commission; Belisário dos Santos Júnior, talking about the Carandiru massacre; Inês Virgínia Soares, from the Federal Public Ministry; Célia Galvão Quirino, addressing the ‘Battle of Maria Antonia’; and Binho, from ‘Sarau do Binho’.

Sociologist Sergio Adorno, then coordinator of the UNESCO Chair, and political scientist Rossana Reis, coordinator and idealizer of the Human Rights Cartography project, are also in the film.

The film came to be in 2014 from a project with the same name that addressed issues related to the theme, seeking to sensitize society and attract their attention to human rights. From this idea, places that hosted such struggles and achievements in São Paulo were selected and cataloged on a digital platform (www.cartografiadh.iea.usp.br), which georeferences and presents tour itineraries by region and theme. For each selected landmark, there are reference texts, photographs and testimonies of journalists and social activists. The system also allows new locations to be added and thus encompass even more achievements.

Among the movements and fights presented both in the video and on the platform there are: Marcha das Vadias, Unified Black Movement (Movimento Negro Unificado), CUT, Osasco Strikes, LGBT Parade, Justice and Peace Commission, UNEAFRO, Carandiru Massacre, ‘Battle of Maria Antônia’, Women's Union of São Paulo, Brasil Mulher, Tenondé Porã Indigenous Lands, Oboré, Ecumenical Act of 1975 in honor of Vladimir Herzog, Federal Public Ministry's Exposition ‘(Re) Knowing... To Never Forget!’ (‘(Re) Conhecer... Para Nunca Esquecer!’), Center for the Study of Violence (NEV), Demonstrations of June 2013, MMC, Kantuta Square and the Immigrants' March, ‘Sarau do Binho’ and the Assembly for the right to vote in the Anhangabaú Valley in the 1980s.

Production and direction

The choice of Imagina Coletivo, a non-profit organization, and Tiago Pereira for the production and direction of the documentary is in tune with the transforming character that the film seeks to have.

Pereira began his story in filming together with the birth of Imagina Coletivo, when the project Imagina na Copa was launched. It existed between 2012 and 2014. At that time, 75 web documentaries were produced in all 27 Brazilian states, telling stories of young people that act as transformers. He has also directed the short film Rolezinhos, which won as best film in the Social Vision category of the 2014 Entretodos Festival, and produced the film Guardiões de Santa Rosa in partnership with the Futura Channel.

Imagina Coletivo is currently working with social content production in different languages - workshops, courses and facilitation of meetings, and advice on mobilization, engagement and social entrepreneurship.

Financing and partnertships

The ‘Human Rights Mapping’ project was contemplated in the 2013 contest of USP’s Dean for Culture and University Extension, which financed the initiative, and had partnerships with the Maria Antonia University Center and the Federal Public Ministry. The recording of the testimonies was done with the support of TV Alesp (Legislative Assembly of the State of São Paulo), and the visual identity was developed by the 2012 group of Advertising of USP’s School of Communications and Arts (ECA), under the guidance of Professor Dorinho Bastos.

The Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), the Hannah Arendt Studies Center, the Rubens Paiva State Truth Commission of São Paulo, the Department of Political Science of USP’s Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Literature, and Human Sciences (FFLCH), and USP’s Postgraduate Program In Political Science have also supported the activities.

One of the enriching results of the first edition of the IEA Sabbatical Year Program is the performance of the video 'Dynamics, Fluctuations and Blindspots,' by cultural policy expert Lúcia Maciel Barbosa de Oliveira, a professor at USP's School of Communications and Arts (ECA), and filmmaker Priscila Lima.

Available on YouTube, the video is based on the research 'Contemporary Cultural Dynamics: Overlapping of Singularities, Collectives, Technologies and Cultural Institutions in the Common Perspective', developed by Oliveira at the IEA from March 2016 to February 2017.

The 24-minute long video synthesizes six hours of recorded interviews with artists, cultural producers, managers and researchers. The interviews were part of the work carried out by the researcher in the places of action of the cultural collectives, where she participated in discussions with their members and accompanied performances.

The realization of the video was made possible thanks to the scholarship of the Sabbatical Year Program granted to researchers by USP's Dean of Research. The production also had the support of ECA.

Oliveira has worked with cultural policy for many years, having even worked in film production before becoming a professor at USP. Producing something different from the usual writing of scientific articles has always been an aspiration: 'My desire was to produce a video to give voice to the people of the cultural collectives and to make the power of their work appear, which would be difficult in an article, which is something more descriptive.'

Given the academic compartmentalisation in the evaluation of projects by development agencies, however, she realized that this idea would be difficult to achieve: 'If I asked the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) for resources to produce a video, I could hardly do it because it is not within the audiovisual area. I saw the sabbatical program at the IEA as was a very good chance to combine the realization of the video with my research proposal, which is a cut from a bigger project that I develop.'

Blindspots

The title of the video refers to the dynamics of the emergence of the cultural collectives and also to two aspects: "The term 'fluctuations' is due to the fact that culture itself is fluctuating, fugitive, procedural; and 'blindspots' is related to the quote in the beginning of video, by British researcher Terry Eagleton, taken from the book The Idea of Culture": 'Every culture has an internal blindspot where it fails to grasp or be at one with itself, and to discern this... is to understand that culture more fully.'

This statement by Eagleton, according to Oliveira, means that culture has aspects that are incomprehensible, untranslatable, non-verbalizable, that we must conform to the total misunderstanding of this universe. For her, certain aspects of the relationship between the dynamics of the cultural collectives and formal cultural policies are examples of blindspots, including the use of cultural equipment that embodies these policies.

Lúcia Maciel Barbosa de Oliveira was a sabbatical researcher at the IEA in 2016

'My intention was to balance the speech of some of the managers of cultural equipment in São Paulo with the words of some collectives. I wanted to understand this dynamics in a municipal administration [that of former mayor Fernando Haddad] that opened for a more active participation of the cultural collectives in the equipment and in which a certain disjunction between the discourses persisted."

Co-management

Oliveira explains that the cultural collectives do not claim a complete autonomy in the management and use of cultural equipment: "The groups that have created the House of Culture of the Ermelino Matarazzo neighbourhood have occupied a property of that subprefecture that was abandoned, and proposed a co-management contract, which was accepted by the Municipal Secretariat of Culture. Resources were passed on to a cultural collective with legal inscription in charge of management and accountability. "

At the time, the secretariat pointed to this co-management agreement as the embryo of a model for the São Paulo's culture houses, according to the researcher. 'This is not strange in other countries.'

The emergence of the cultural collectives

The cultural collectives are the result of the very public cultural policies, according to Lucia. "Many of these young people have been motivated by the programs and pageants that tried to expand the scope of the Municipal Secretariat of Culture to encompass the peripheries."

The cultural collectives have nothing of amateur or improvisational, according to Oliveira. 'They have clarity about what their work is, and their actions are very much discussed and elaborated.' Many of these people went to college, benefited from recent educational policies. They use whatever is possible, such as pageants, funding, media insertion and working with digital resources, all without giving up their references and the principles that govern the groups."

Oliveira's biggest project is to think of cultural policies for the 21st century from the demands of a civil society that has been expanding its participation. 'Culture is a field that allows certain flexibilities in experimentation, which can be broadened to other areas thanks to these co-management processes through participatory budgeting.'

Photos (from the top): 1. Taken from 'Dynamics, Fluctuations and Blind Spots'; 2. Leonor Calasans/IEA-USP

The construction of narratives on the symbology of environmental themes will be discussed on April 17

Joanne Garde-Hansen, director of the Center for Cultural and Media Policy Studies at the University of Warwick, UK, will be at the IEA on April 17, from 3.00 pm to 6.00 pm, to discuss the theme Water: Nostalgia and Trauma - Narratives, Rights and Policies in England. At the meeting, to take place in the former University Council Room, she will suggest a reflection on diversity related to issues that deserve more attention in scientific terminology and public policy.

Garde-Hansen has been working with Brazilian researchers in order to construct social narratives linked to water and public policies, and argues that seeking connections and convergences between terms such as "drought" (which assumes different meanings in Brazil and in Europe) may favor dialogue between nations and cultures. The event will be held in English and broadcast live on the IEA's website.

Moderation will be in charge of professors Pedro Jacobi, from USP's School of Education (FE), Danilo Rothberg, from the São Paulo State University (UNESP), Antonio Almeida, from USP's Luiz de Queiroz School of Agriculture (ESALQ), and Gilson Schwartz, from USP's School of Communications of Arts (ECA) and a participant of IEA's Sabbatical Year Program in 2017. Schwartz is also coordinating the event.

The fluid theme relating water, cultural sharing and memory invites for a dialogue on concepts between cultures, social narratives, rights and public policies. "The term 'drought', for example, assumes a meaning in Europe that does not coincide with the perception of the fact in Brazil or in other countries," says the researcher. "There is no universal definition of terms that only theoretically have the same value or meaning."

Organized by the IEA, the debate is supported by USP's Center for Research in Technology of Architecture and Urbanism (NUTAU), the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), UNESP and the University of Warwick.

The speaker

Joanne Garde-Hansen is a lecturer in the field of Culture, Media and Communication, responsible for the Master's course in Global Media and Communication, and director of the Center for Cultural and Media Policy Studies at the University of Warwick. She conducts researches on media, memory, archives and patrimony, and keeps multidisciplinary collaborations with scientists of the most diverse areas, among them geography, natural resources, computation, history, besides communication and culture.

In Crateús, in the dry region of the Brazilian State of Ceará, residents pay R$ 0.50 for 20 liters of non-potable water

Some of her latest books are Emotion Online: Theorizing Affect in the Internet (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), with Kristyn Gorton; Media and Memory (Edinburgh University Press, 2011), with Andrew Hoskins and Anna Reading, and Social Memory Technology: Theory, Practice, Action (Routledge 2016).

Since 2012, she has been working on projects funded by FAPESP, the British Council and the Warwick Brazil Partnership.

She is the co-investigator of the project Developing a Drought Narrative Resource in a Multi-Stakeholder Decision-Making Utility for Drought Risk Management, or DRY (Drought Risk and You), from 2014 to 2019.

Since 2016, she has been visiting the city of Bauru, in the countryside of the State of São Paulo, exploring the theme "Narratives on Water and Digital Hydrocity", a research carried out with Professor Danilo Rothberg, from UNESP, with funding from FAPESP and the University of Warwick.

Images: Fernanda Carvalho/Fotos Públicas; Fernando Frazão/Agência Brasil

Ricardo Ohtake, new holder of the Olavo Setubal Chair of Arts, Culture and Science.

To address the trajectory of art and culture in Brazil from the post-Second War period until the crisis of 2016, and to analyze the current situation of institutions and activities in the field with prospects for the future, are some of the goals of the new holder of the Olavo Setubal Chair of Arts, Culture and Science, created in 2015 and officially launched in February 2016 by the IEA in partnership with Itaú Cultural. Architect, graphic designer and cultural manager Ricardo Ohtake took office on March 17, in a ceremony in the University Council Room that was attended by authorities, sponsors of the Chair, artists and scientists.

"The discussion of the future is what matters most, mainly because of the new political, social, economic, administrative and institutional situation in Brazil, which we know has created a legal anomaly in the country, provoking insecurity for the population and certain insecurity in the cultural environment", said Ohtake.

While opening the ceremony, Martin Grossmann, academic coordinator of the Chair, professor at USP's School of Communications and Arts (ECA), and former director of the IEA, welcomed the new holder and thanked the work done by diplomat and essayist Sérgio Paulo Rouanet, former national secretary of Culture and author of the bill to encourage culture that bears his name. During the inaugural year of the Chair, Rouanet developed the approximation between the borders of knowledge in the personal, institutional and scientific scopes, as he recalled in his speech.

The new activities will include the debate on the actions and the thinking of cultural leaders, and the participation of institutions in the development of the artistic and cultural field, in a reflection that will go back to the cultural history of Brazil, Grossmann showed.

Ohtake recalled the evolution of Brazilian society and mentality - including its typical contradictions and complexities with which "a modern and medieval country" was built - and related this trajectory to the steps taken by the country in the cultural and artistic fields.

He mentioned the beginnings of the cosmopolitanization of Brazil, especially in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, with the emergence of icons such as the Vera Cruz Cinematographic Company, the TBC Brazilian Theater of Comedy, art institutions, the Biennale and museums, among them the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP), created by the coffee bourgeoisie.

To expose and develop his own trajectory as a cultural leader in the context of the city, the country and internationally will be one of Ohtake's pursued goals. He will also invite critics, cultural leaders, artists and historians to participate in debates and testimonials; approach the relationship between art and politics and the role of exhibitions in the art debate; and analyze the role of cultural leaders in the development of institutions and thinking.

The new holder intends to bring his experience of more than 50 years in this field. He has been Secretary of Culture of the State of São Paulo, Secretary of the Green and Environment of São Paulo, director of the São Paulo Cultural Center, and director of the Museum of Image and Sound and the Brazilian Cinematheque. He has lectured in several architecture, communications and plastic arts faculties and was curator of the Brazilian participation at the Architecture Biennale of Venice in 2010.

The Ohtake family is one of the most influential for the arts and architecture in Brazil. Ricardo Ohtake is son of artist Tomie Ohtake (1913-2015) and brother of architect Ruy Ohtake, who signs the project of the famous building that houses the Tomie Ohtake Institute. He has graduated from USP's Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism (FAU), and currently directs the Tomie Ohtake Institute.

"If, on the one hand, cultural activity is always provided by very limited resources, on the other hand it always requires a lot of imagination and daring for propositions to be solved. The leader does not have to be an intellectual, but he must know where the concepts, the variations of approaches, the artists, the history of art, and also the engineering of the activities take place. As the resource is never enough, knowing how to give priorities and alternatives is fundamental to make sense of everything that is done," he said.

While reviewing his own career, Ohtake recalled his childhood, when he invented things and plays on the street in the 'Mooca' neighborhood, in São Paulo. "I realized with surprise that I internalized what critic Mário Pedrosa said in the 1950s to my mother: 'The key is to be original.' I understood that I always had to be original, not only in artistic creation."

From the left: Eduardo Saron, Ricardo Ohtake, José Roberto Sadek, Vahan Agopyan, Sérgio Paulo Rouanet, Roberto Setúbal and Paulo Saldiva.

Tributes

The Olavo Setubal Chair of Arts, Culture and Science, created to foster interdisciplinary reflections on academic, artistic-cultural and social issues in the regional and global contexts, has been taking the form of an "experimental platform for freedom", according to Grossmann.

"If Rouanet practiced the permanent exercise of criticism by producers, and academic and cultural institutions during this period, Ricardo Ohtake intends to explore the experimental exercise of freedom, be it as a public figure, as a cultural manager, or through his wisdom and his constant thinking that produces an exemplary practice in the field of the arts and culture," said Grossmann.

In almost 12 months of activity as holder of the Chair, Rouanet has sought broad approximations and interactions in the epistemic, institutional or even personal fields, he showed. "The participation of so many colleagues in the effort to give prestige to other areas of knowledge, culture, arts, psychoanalysis, science and philosophy was an attempt to minimize the gap between the human sciences and other sciences," he said.

For Rouanet, the Chair has been a unique opportunity to deepen the effort to unify science a little more; an effort that was extended to the institutional field, with USP interacting with other institutions.

In the words of IEA's director Paulo Saldiva, the ceremony brings the symbolic sign of generosity and passion expressed in the "action of sponsors such as Itaú Cultural, or in the work of people like Ricardo Ohtake, who come to share their experience, teach and illuminate the spirit."

The Chair also celebrates the union between academia, artists, intellectuals and young people who could see the example of rare values such as leadership and enchantment, Saldiva said. "Values such as generosity, passion and enchantment for study are sorely lacking for our youth today. These are feelings that make things happen despite all the difficulties," he emphasized.

USP's Vice-President Vahan Agopyan has stressed the importance of interlocution between academia and external sectors provided by chairs and interdisciplinary instances as the IEA. "I often say that the IEA is the think tank of USP: a place for debates on cross-cutting themes and, as well as the chairs, capable of promoting interaction with society. Dialogue with society is a challenge of the 21st century for all universities, and with the support of Itaú Cultural we are managing to increase this interaction," said Agopyan.

Roberto Setúbal, executive president of Itaú bank, when speaking about the support for the Chair, preferred to recall his father's personality and his tradition of appreciation for culture, his career as an entrepreneur and an engineer graduated from USP's Polytechnic School (POLI). "Severe, firm and demanding, but always very open to dialogue and new ideas. A man of science and research - he has worked at the Institute of Technological Research (IPT). A mayor who created the São Paulo Secretariat of Culture, a gesture that made me very proud in my student days and that shows how he valued culture and was open to the new," he said.

Eduardo Saron, director of Itaú Cultural, recalled the important role of Ohtake in the democratization of culture and arts in Brazil. "The democratization of access to culture, so much discussed by managers in the country, is a theme that will remain for a long time. Art and culture are beyond the needs and rights of the citizen. If the artist thinks of art as a field of desires, managers and actors of cultural politics need to think about culture in this aspect. It is not a matter of democratizing access only. It is about autonomy and freedom of expression. Cultural democracy thinks and understands the individual as an actor of self; an autonomous citizen who has the right to freedom of expression; to see and experience all cultures," said Saron.

Professor Lilia Moritz Schwarcz, from USP's Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Literature, and Human Sciences (FFLCH), was invited to give the reception address to the honoree. She recalled the work done with Ohtake and the projects undertaken at the Tomie Ohtake Institute.

Lilia Schwarcz, from USP's Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Literature, and Human Sciences (FFLCH): "Ricardo Ohtake has distributed gifts in the fields of art and culture".

"A visionary of the arts, an intellectual of culture, an academic of the world of museums, of the arts in the broad sense, he knows that culture is what it does. In Ricardo Ohtake's words, among the various ways of assessing the success of different art forms, there is a unifying question, which is the transformation that the viewer of art undergoes before a work, and the emotion that provides a new knowledge, a new sensitivity, and / or a new experience," said Schwarcz.

For Schwarcz, Ohtake has "distributed gifts": he has toured the fields of architecture, graphic arts, decoration, urbanism, drawing, theater, education, cinema, publishing, dance, photography and the plastic arts; he has made exhibitions, documentaries, film festivals; sponsored concerts; created drawings for many books. "He has inspired generations, having passed through numerous institutions until landing at the Tomie Ohtake Institute, which opened for all kinds of experimentation."

"It is impossible to meet Ricardo without being deeply affected by his history, his smile, his generosity, his very noisy silence, and his transforming affection. I congratulate USP for realizing that Ricardo is a born scholar in the sublime function of being a cultural multiplier, and thus an immense distributor of gifts, an intellectual open to diversity, plurality and equality in this unfortunately unequal country," said the professor.

The State Secretary for Culture of São Paulo, José Roberto Sadek, highlighted the important link between the university and society promoted by the Chair, and the promotion of non-polarized dialogue, treated with the complexity and nuances that the theme requires.

Roger Buergel, director of the Johann Jacobs Museum in Zurich and curator of the 12th Documenta in Kassel, will be at the IEA for the conference The Museum of Things in-Between. The speech will be broadcast live on the Institute's website.

On February 9, at 2.30 pm, he will address the need to give more visibility and space to things that are now in an in-between condition in the field of culture. In Buergel's opinion, one must get rid of the museological categories, and of the distinctions between art and non-art, promoting the appreciation of the uniqueness of objects on display. The researcher believes that the existence of categories in museums leads to a restricted human perception about things.

According to Martin Grossmann, coordinator of the Research Group Fórum Permanente: Cultural System Between Public and Private, which organizes the meeting, the museum format proposed by Buergel operates in a post-colonial (transcultural) mode, critical to a museum model that was developed in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but still very present today. "It is a museum that promotes a more horizontal relationship between cultures, languages and cosmologies, where the object - 'the thing' - can act 'in-between', whether in relation to museological or disciplinary categories, or in relation to different notions of space and time," he explains.

Grossmann recalls that the subject has already been explored in Brazil, mainly in the fields of cultural theory and criticism. Silviano Santiago's "The Space In-Between: Essays in Latin American Culture" (1971) and Roberto Schwartz's "Misplaced Ideas: Essays on Brazilian Culture" (1977) are two examples of works that address possibilities of action out of the European modern tradition.

The meeting at the IEA will feature a debate with the participation of Lisette Lagnado, director of the School of Visual Arts Parque Lage; Carlos Roberto Brandão, director of USP's Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC); José Teixeira Coelho Netto, former director of MAC-USP and curator-general of MASP from 2006 to 2014; and the former director of the Museum of Modern Art of Bahia, curator and culture-specialized journalist Marcelo Rezende. Moderation will be in charge of Grossmann.

The dossier resumes the discussion on unemployment begun in a previous issue with seven articles by historians, sociologists and economists. The opening article, by Alexandre de Freitas Barbosa, from USP's Institute of Brazilian Studies (IEB), outlines the general characteristics of the labour market formation process in Brazil. The panorama analyzed by Barbosa addresses the colonial period up to the end of the process of industrialization (1930-80).

The set of texts also analyzes specific issues such as labour in the Northeast of Brazil, the effects of economic recession, the reduction of social protection of workers and inequality in the gender division of labour.

The section "Energy and Environment" contains five articles on national energy programs and shows that "conviviality is not always easy to ecological ideals and growth policies," according to the journal's editor, Alfredo Bosi.

This second aspect is discussed in an article by Helena Margarido Moreira and Wagner Costa Ribeiro on the position of China in the negotiations on climate change. The authors comment that China seeks to ensure the principle of differentiated responsibilities and be classified as a developing country, avoiding compromising its domestic goals of economic development. The same section presents texts on the interaction of botany and geography with anthropological and environmental bodies.

The articles of the section "Culture and Politics" address controversial issues of social sciences today: multiculturalism seen from the universal and the particular dialectic perspective; the analysis of the June 2013 demonstrations in Brazil from the perspective of the political culture of consumption; the debate on the relationship between science, expertise and democracy; and the treatment given by the media to the Quotas Act. The section also brings a history of the 25 years of work of the Escola de Governo (School of Government), an institution dedicated to explain the working mechanism of political institutions and to cooperate with the correction of the course of the Brazilian political life, according to one of its founders, jurist Fábio Konder Comparato.

Texts that address the indigenous people Arara Karo, computational complexity, and books on Walter Benjamin and Haiti complete the issue.

The list below contains the names of the authors who have contributed with each one of the addressed themes:

Labour market

Alexandre de Freitas Barbosa
Monica Duarte Dantas
Vivian Chieregati Costa
Roberto Véras de Oliveira
Magda Barros Biavaschi
José Alcides Figueiredo Santos
Luiz Vicente Fonseca Ribeiro
Maria Cristina Cacciamali
Fabio Tatei
Luana Passos de Souza
Dyeggo Rocha Guedes

Energy and Environment

Edgar Antonio Perlotti
Edmilson Moutinho dos Santos
Hirdan Katarina de Medeiros Costa
Marcilei Andrea Pezenatto Vignatti
Luiz Fernando Scheibe
Maria Assunta Busato
Antonio Salatino
Marcos Buckeridge
Raquel Dezidério Souto
Helena Margarido Moreira
Wagner Costa Ribeiro

Culture and Politics

Celso Frederico
Isleide Fontenelle
Maya Mitre
Maria Salete Magnoni
Fábio Konder Comparato

Indigenism

Betty Mindlin

Computation

José Roberto Castilho Piqueira

Reviews

Fabio Mascaro Querido
Cristine Koehler Zanella

In addition to having a programme dedicated to the natural sciences, the second phase of the Intercontinental Academia in Nagoya also had a workshop on arts, on March 15. The exhibitors were two members of the Tokyo University of the Arts: Akitoshi Edagawa, an expert in cultural economics expert, and professor of global art studies and curatorial practices, and Satoru Kitago, sculptor and director of research.

In his presentation, Edagawa commented on the relations of the artistic act with the transcendence of time, the communicative role of art, and the difference between art and science.

He made a distinction - in relation to time - between the performing arts (performances, happenings, and music, dance and theater presentations) and those called fine arts (painting, printmaking, drawing, sculpture, photography, etc.).

To Edagawa, the performing arts can be called time arts once that the artist and the audience are in direct contact during the artistic act, while in the fine arts the public has contact with the artwork after its implementation.

But even music - considered under the aspect of composition - transcends time thanks to musical notation, although future executions can be distinguished from the original composer's intentions because "many ideas are incorporated by interpreters and passed on to subsequent generations", according to the researcher.

Izanagi and Izanami (2012), by Satoru Kitago

He also stressed that one should consider the relative transcendence of time in aspects of the performing arts made possible by the technological capabilities of image and audio recording.

Cultural differences

The transcendence of time manifests itself differently in the artistic traditions of East and West. In the West, works and artistic procedures are transmitted in time through text, notations and other resources, which is not common in the East, according to Edagawa, citing the set of traditional Japanese arts called gei-do, where there are no records and new practitioners learn to perform from those who master them.

A work of art incorporates aspects of the time when it was produced, but it is understood and appreciated in the future from a new sensibility, said Edagawa. This is the reason to the fact that sometimes a past work of art is considered better than one of the present, which does not happen in science, "because it is believed that it qualitatively progresses with time".

He commented that English poet and philosopher William Hazlitt (1778-1830), when addressing this difference two hundred years ago, said that scientific studies evolve while art does not. Edagawa considers, however, that art can become more sophisticated over time through the incorporation of scientific and technological resources.

Melencolia 1, by Albrecht Dürer

Incorporation of time

To Kitago, each work of art tells a story through spatial and temporal situations, thus expressing its attachment to past, present and future. "Moreover, when presented to the public in different places and times, it gives rise to new stories drawn from the experiences of the observers."

He illustrated his presentation with images of his own work as well as of German painter and printmaker Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), Swiss sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), and Spanish painter and sculptor Antonio López.

Kitago commented on Dürer's Melencolia 1: "We can see a comet in the sky, a geometric shape, and a character that handles a compass with a melancholic expression. Interestingly, recent scientific articles report the presence of amino acids in comets. Amino acids are components in the origin of life and their crystallographic form is quite similar to the one observed in the picture. Perhaps the character was thinking about the future of humanity and life on Earth."

The sculptor related this interpretation with his concern to express "the question about where people came from and where they go" when producing sculptures with human forms.

Still on Dürer's piece, Kitago showed a picture of Cube (1934-35), one of the abstract sculptures of Giacometti: "It resembles a mask, a face and also the geometric shape present in the work by Dürer. I believe that Giacometti was interested in Melencolia 1."

When showing a photograph of another work by Giacometti, Femme Leoni (1947), Kitago said that he, as the Swiss artist, seeks to emphasize the space, the human figure and the passage of time in his sculptures.

Cube (1934-5) and Femme Leoni (1947), by Alberto Giacometti

As examples of explicit representation of the incorporation of time into works of art, Kitago cited López's works. The sculpture Hombre y mujer (1968-1994) represents a couple with young bodies and heads of aged people. The painting Gran Vía (1974-1981) shows the changes that occurred in a Madrid corner during the years it took to be painted. The painting La Cena (1971-1980) shows the changes in the face of a woman during the nine years in which the work was made.

Kitago said that the goal of having discussed the works of López and Giacometti in his presentation was to emphasize that the artwork has not only the economic side: "I believe that artists and researchers should not pursue only economic aspects. The main goal should be trying to express and pursue reality. What I tell my students is to create sculptures with a philosophy, so maybe in a hundred, two hundred years, people continue to receive their message."

Communication

Commenting on Kitago's exhibition, Edagawa said that "it is possible that the message of an artist is transmitted one hundred, two hundred years after their death, but society will have changed a lot and thus not always the real intentions of the artist will be understood."

He asked the opinion of Kitago on artworks done by teams in studios under the guidance of a master artist, as in the case of the works by Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, by Raphael and Da Vinci in the Renaissance or those of when the Buddhist culture emerged in Japan.

Hombre y mujer (1968-94), Gran Vía (1974-81) and La Cena (1971-80), by Antonio López

Despite being a defender of an artist's personal and manual work, Kitago sees no problem in production teams if necessary: "The large works of the Buddhist culture necessarily had to be made that way."

At the time of the workshop a series of exhibitions took place in Japan, including Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) and Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610). Kitago said that an interesting activity in both exhibitions was to try to find out which works had been produced by the artists themselves and which were of members of their studios.

Edagawa commented that the insight to this requires a certain capacity of the public and asked Kitago how artists could contribute to this. The important thing, according to Kitago, is that familiarity with art begins in childhood. "I do not think art is difficult to understand, but you need to interact with it from an early age to acquire an artistic sense that provides more pleasure with the works"

Martin Grossmann, former director of the IEA and member of the Intercontinental Academia's scientific committee, said that the works by López commented by Kitago reminded him of The Large Glass (1915-23), a work that Marcel Duchamp took a long time to produce, incorporating the passage of time in it.

The Large Glass (1915-23), by Marcel Duchamp

According to Grossmann, Duchamp has incorporated the viewer, including the non-specialist one, to the art system. "This is necessary in contemporary art. We need to think about the reception of art and how it affects one's sense." He wanted to know the opinion of Edagawa and Kitago on this issue in the Japanese context.

Kitago agreed with Grossmann on the change in the observer's role introduced by Duchamp and said that art has to stimulate the viewer to have new expectations. To Edagawa, the major issue in the artist-audience relationship is communication: "Although contemporary art is often ambiguous about what it wants to express, the artist must make an effort to communicate their thoughts and their philosophy. There must be the intention of trying to communicate."

Photos (from the top): IAR / Nagoya University; Satoru Kitago; Reproduction; Alberto Giacometti Foundation; Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti; Antonio López; Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Modernity and its Ambivalences was the opening conference of the Olavo Setubal Chair of Arts, Culture and Science, a project of the IEA in partnership with the Itaú Cultural Institute.

Political scientist, philosopher and diplomat Sergio Paulo Rouanet addressed the influence of modernity in the economic, political and cultural contexts through the ideas of sociologists Max Weber and Manuel Castells, and philosopher Jürgen Habermas, on May 17. He said that modernity was institutionalized in two vectors that incorporate aspects of each other: the functional one and the emancipatory one.

The notion that modernization is mainly effective can be found in the ideas of Weber, Rouanet said. "This concept is what prevails in the specialized literature, and in economic and social development policies. He believes that it is a functional concept of modernity with the idea that in a modern society institutions work better than in an archaic one, which is identified by globalization.

The emancipatory vector, in turn, only considers a society modern if its subsystems (economy, politics and culture) also provide the maximum autonomy possible for individuals, Rouanet said.

In this view, modernity would mean the following: in the economic context, the individual works to have access to goods and services, necessary for their well-being; in the political context, there is ability to put citizenship into practice; and in the cultural context, there is the free use of reason, "an institutional context that guarantees the right to cultural production and the right of access to culture for everyone."

The ceremony has highlighted the importance of the partnership between universities and the private sector in support of culture From left to right: Maria Alice Setubal, Paulo Saldiva, Marcelo de Andrade Romero and Eduardo Saron The launch of the Olavo Setubal Chair of Arts, Culture and Science was held at the USP's School of Medicine in the presence of the provost for Culture and University Extension, Marcelo de Andrade Romero, the director of the IEA, Paulo Saldiva, the director of Itaú Cultural, Eduardo Saron, and sociologist and educator Maria Alice Setubal, daughter of Olavo Setubal (1993-2008). Rouanet was presented by his colleague at the Brazilian Academy of Letters (ABL), Alfredo Bosi, a professor emeritus from the USP's Faculy of Philosophy, Languages and Literature, and Human Sciences (FFLCH), and an honorary professor of the IEA. The conference had the following commentators: Celso Lafer, former president of the São Paulo Research Foundation, also a member of the ABL and professor emeritus from the USP's Faculty of Law; Renato Janine Ribeiro, former Minister of Education and a professor at FFLCH; and Barbara Freitag, a professor emeritus from the University of Brasília. The event was closed by Martin Grossmann, former director of the IEA and scientific coordinator of the chair. All of them have stressed the importance of the chair being the result of a partnership between a public university and a private institution for the sake of art and culture. They have also highlighted the peculiar profile of Setubal as an entrepreneur who has always stood out in supporting culture. In 1975, when he was the mayor of São Paulo, he defined the construction of a large public library, which later became the São Paulo Cultural Center. He created the Itaú Cultural in 1987. As for the choice of Rouanet being the first chair holder, Saron and Grossmann said that his name was naturally mentioned when they sought to identify an intellectual with a decisive role in the development and deployment of culture supportive policies. Rouanet was the National Secretary of Culture in 1991-92, being the author of the cultural incentive law that bears his name. From left to right: Celso Lafer, Renato Janine Ribeiro, Barbara Freitag and Martin Grossmann.

Photos: Leonor Calasans/IEA-USP