Crossing the Horizons - exhibition (Porto Alegre - Brazil 2018)

WYL?
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International Research Collective
“Crossing the Horizons, 2018/19”

Brazil, Kuwait, Australia, United Kingdom, United States

As part of Porto Alegre’s book festival, the WYL? research collective wanted to explore what it means to be an international collective. Pairing each non-Brazilian Artist with a Brazilian artist, we wanted to explore what it means to work collaboratively when the members of our collective are situated in different countries, speaking different languages and producing differing types of work.

Earlier this year WYL? Earlier this year WYL? produced a series of films which were screened in the UK. Working through the medium of film gave us a unifying, accessible and economically viable way of working internationally and collectively.

For this exhibition we’ve gone a step further, not just using a unifying medium – in this instance the artists book – but we also wanted to develop collaborative practices between our artists.

We thought carefully about where the books were going to be exhibited and how to make them as accessible as possible. The new artist books published for this exhibition have written information in Portuguese and Arabic to indicate the connections forged between Porto Alegre and Kuwait through the WYL? international research collective.

Centralising Portuguese and Arabic marks a shift in how we want to work. Our intention is not to create works that have no significance to the geographical, social and political context in which they are exhibited, but instead to work with the institutions and people in the locations we produce work for, gaining a deeper understanding of how our artwork has meaning in a local and global context.

Our artists have developed their own working practices as they’ve been paired together. Some have exchanged pages, others have exchanged images, some have argued, resolved their arguments, worked harmoniously. All have worked hard to synthesize two peoples practice into a single vision. The results of which you can see for yourselves.

We hope you find value in the work we’ve made for Porto Alegre and CEEV. We hope you find value in our practice of collaborative working, of experimentation and the collection of different voices from different locations.

Yours Faithfully,

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