Get to know the work of the Rio artist Pessanha

Artist and researcher from Rio de Janeiro, Pedro Pessanha grew up in Maracanã, a neighborhood in Rio. He holds a master's degree in Contemporary Studies from UFF and has won awards such as Bossa Nova and Pretas Potências. In his work, which navigates through paintings, urban interventions, tattoos, comics, and others, he seeks to understand how black rhythms and the traditions that survive in Rio de Janeiro persist despite many attempts at erasure.

We talked a little with Pessanha about his references, creative process, and, above all, the reasons for producing his art.

In what way has your upbringing and your parents' closeness to writing and music shaped you as an artist?

• I grew up surrounded by books and records that my parents listened to and introduced me to, and this contributed not only to having a broad cultural repertoire but also to establishing connections with the things I saw in the street and in my daily life with more fluidity, without judgment. The vinyl records they played in the living room and the exhibitions they took me to blended with the anime I watched on the TV in the morning or the sticker album I collected at school. But, I think the greatest inheritance from this upbringing was fostering a curiosity that has followed me to this day, a desire to know how things came to be what they are and to try to weave them into the broadest web of connections possible with all other information I can grasp, gather, and collect.

How does your academic background influence your artistic work and your research on the figure of black people in Rio de Janeiro?

• Your academic background is a dance with everything it can offer you in terms of new perspectives and how much you allow yourself to be shaped to remain in that space. That being said, I think that the possibility of studying aided by an institution and the support of teachers and peers is an incredible opportunity, but at the end of the day, it’s about what you can extract from that for your own life experience and investigative goals. Finally, I believe that after some stumbling, I managed to direct my research where I wanted - but even discovering what I wanted was a journey. I think capturing that structure for my goal of analyzing a history and tools of continuity for the black population of my city was what I found most precious there.

What does the creative process that involves the production of your works look like? How do the different mediums you explore contribute to the construction of unique narratives?

• Much of my creative process stems from the curiosity I mentioned. Some gesture I observe in an elderly person on the street, a corner of the city that whispers a secret, a story I stumble upon while researching something else, that ignites a different spark, touches a note in the thread that occupies my mind at that particular moment. From there, I start a research process and strategically try to choose a medium for that narrative that caught my attention and that I want the world to notice as well. How to invite someone to put their ear to the ground with you? Each medium we have available has its specificity, something that reveals and something that omits. There are a thousand ways to illuminate a story, and each one creates an image and a shadow. Then it’s about choosing the one that projects the most interesting drawing, where the form best shapes the content. Always knowing that it will always say much more than you initially planned.

Your exhibition "Sobre o Chão" questions how cultural manifestations and the marginalized society of Rio have survived the attempts at erasure over the years. What are the main challenges faced when producing a work that accurately portrays the place and how traditions survive?

• These manifestations always sneak through the gaps in erasure projects and make themselves heard. Sometimes, they do this so elegantly that we don’t even realize the whole negotiator's discussion and the flexibility it took for them to be present there, resonating. I think that when I started wanting to draw attention to this game, my interest was to investigate the path that buried gold took to reach the surface. To retrace the footsteps and sketch a possible map, a glossary of strategies, also adopting the challenge of being one of many architects of this path, so that those who come after me always have access to what came before.

How do you think the history of Rio de Janeiro, along with its physical elements and the manifestations of marginalized groups, influence and shape the narratives present in your artistic creations?

• I began to look more closely at the city precisely when I was forcibly distanced from it during the pandemic and the isolation it brought. I wanted to investigate what I missed so much and how I could love a city that did everything to complicate my existence. Trying to understand precisely how this correlation of forces, this game of oppression and resistance, shaped the city where I live and consequently shaped me as well. Thus, this questioning permeates everything I have done since then.

You navigate through a variety of mediums to realize your artistic practice, such as tattooing, comics, illustrations, paintings, music, etc. For you, how does this multiplicity facilitate your expression being placed in the world?

• For a while, I was grappling with that, actually. I questioned whether shooting in all directions prevented me from truly delving deep and establishing myself in a specific area. Later I realized that, besides being a generational characteristic (the goal of having a linear and stable career has disintegrated alongside the inevitable scattering of how society is now organized socially and economically), it is a material necessity (to survive on your creativity, you will rarely be able to rely on just one area of action). But above all, it was something that was meant to add: my research as a DJ created connections with investigating comics, my work in illustration spilled over into making paintings, and these lines intersect, resulting in a unique product of your specific multiplicity. And that is what is most interesting, right? How the thousands of factors that make you who you are overflow and materialize in a small window that brings news from another particular universe.

Photos: @taynauraz