Jaime Lauriano: Nesta terra, em se plantando, tudo dá

One of the winners of the CCBB Contemporary Award, that grants solo shows at CCBB’s Rio de Janeiro’s space for the selected artists Jaime Lauriano (b. 1985, São Paulo, Brazil) named his exhibition after a phrase allegedly written by Pero Vaz de Caminha, clerk of Pedro Álvares Cabral fleet, on his letter-report to king Dom Manuel about the Portuguese arrival in Brazil: “Nesta terra, em se plantando, tudo dá” [In this landing, if planted, everything gives]. The project is based on his research about the formation of Brazil via the imposition of several forms violence on civil society. As symbolic violence is in the center of his interests, media extracts often appear in his works, that are filled with contents from other disciplines, such as History, Anthropology and Sociology.

The work that titles the show is an object composed of a seedling of pau-brasil growing inside a small greenhouse, which will inevitably be torned by the plants roots and branches; by bursting from its support, however, the tree is bound to die. Its life is, therefore, conditioned to its imprisonment – a strong metaphor about the violence forced upon indigenous people during the colonization process.

An instrument used to mark slaves by burning their master’s coat of arms onto their skins, “Calimba”, titles a hitherto unseen series where news headlines are burnt onto plates of wood. All of them came from cases of people restrained or beaten up on the streets between 2013 and 2015. 

For “Suplício no 3” [Torment n. 3], the artist researched the most used weapons in attacks caused by religious discrimination, specially regarding African-Brazilian beliefs. Stones, pieces of glass, construction debris and pieces of wood are displayed in a museum showcase. “Quem não reagiu está vivo” [Who didn’t react is alive], by its turn, creates a timeline, as used in history museums, with texts and illustrations about land disputes, from the discovery of Brazil to 2015 – it’s title is actually a sentence uttered by São Paulo State Governor Geraldo Alckmin when asked about the violent action of the military police during a land expropriation action in 2012. Finally, “Ordem e Progresso” [Order and Progress], the positivist theme imprinted in the Brazilian flag, is a drawing on the floor created with incandescent wire.