Dito e Feito #18 – Valentina Desideri, Denise Ferreira da Silva and Mamadou Ba – O que é este momento político
Valentina Desideri and Denise Ferreira da Silva, both artists and academics based in Canada (but who in January had spent a long time in Lisbon, where they hosted one of their Sensing Salons, widely recognised in the visual arts world) read Tarot cards. Mamadou Ba, an anti-racism militant, anti-colonialist and leader of SOS Racism, asks the following question: “what is this political moment?” Responding to a necessarily political question and forcing a decentralization of the subject, a Poetic Reading session lasts about an hour. It begins with the collective construction of said question, which then becomes the starting point for various readings. In this podcast, recorded a few days after the anti-racist demonstrations in honour of George Floyd, on the 6th of June in Lisbon, Mamadou Ba draws from his experience with the Covid 19: Immediate Response Anti-Racism Campaign which has been acting, among others, in Lisbon’s peripheral neighbourhoods, in order to reflect on vulnerability, strength, solidarity, change.
Using Tarot as a tool, Valentina, Denise and Mamadou pinpoint a question, considering it in all of its complexity from the visual answers provided by the cards. The reading occurs in real-time and the listener is invited to enter into the paused rhythm of the conversation in which one card is interpreted various times, with deviations, making it necessary to sometimes stop to see the images of the card with close attention, considering one’s own thoughts. This episode should be listened to with the visual aid of the image revealed in the cards included in the reading.
created and recorded by Valentina Desideri, Denise Ferreira da Silva and Mamadou Ba
sound editing by Sara Morais
original Dito e Feito soundscape by Raw Forest
produced by Teatro do Bairro Alto