Stella do Patrocínio (1941-1992) was hospitalized in 1962 in the psychiatric hospital Colônia Juliano Moreira in Rio de Janeiro at the age of 21. In the asylum, where she remained until her death, she developed her unclassifiable falatório, a performative, poetic, violent, critical, and prophetic chatter, centering around bichos as one of the main and disruptive figures. This ‘chatter’ addressed social, racial, and gender issues and critically related to her own lived experience as a Black psychiatrized woman. In the midst of a racist, patriarchal, and extremely unequal society, in which psychiatry functioned as a powerful social regulation tool, Do Patrocínio’s metamorphosing into a bicho could be read as an act of invention and resistance.

In the late 1980s and beginning of 1990s, her falatório was recorded, first by the artist Carla Guagliardi and later by Mônica Ribeiro de Souza, a trainee in psychology. These materials provided the basis for a book of poems published in 2001.

After the staged reading of Stella do Patrocínio’s falatório with Yvonne Sembene there will be a presentation by Carla Guagliardi, followed by conversation with Delfina Cabrera, Marlon Miguel, and Elena Vogman

Yvonne Sembene is a French-Senegalese dancer and artist, raised in Luxembourg and based in Berlin. She has taken part in several projects as a performer and developed her own collaborative work exploring multidisciplinary formats and social de/reconstruction through movement and sound. She has also established a dramaturgy practice focussing on identity and cultural accessibility.

Carla Guagliardi is a Brazilian artist, active in the art circuit with exhibitions in institutions in Brazil and abroad, who has been living between Rio de Janeiro and Berlin since 1997. She studied at EAV Parque Lage and graduated in Art History and Architecture in Brazil at PUC-RJ. She was one of the founders of the Visorama group, promoting debates about contemporary art. From 1986 onwards, she was part of a group of artists who implemented a working group of free artistic expression at the psychiatric public hospital Colônia Juliano Moreira, where she met Bispo do Rosário and Stella do Patrocínio. This working group was related to the Brazilian anti-asylum movement (movimento antimanicomial).

In English

19:00 Staged Reading
Falatório. Stella do Patrocínio´s Chatter

With Yvonne Sembene (Performer)

19:30-21:00 Stella do Patrocínio’s Archives

Presentation with Carla Guagliardi (Artist)
In conversation with Delfina Cabrera, Elena Vogman, Marlon Miguel

With

Yvonne Sembene (performer)
Carla Guagliardi (artist)

Delfina Cabrera
Marlon Miguel
Elena Vogman

Organized by

Delfina Cabrera, Marlon Miguel, Elena Vogman

An ICI Berlin Event in cooperation with the research project ‘Madness, Media, Milieus. Reconfiguring the Humanities in Postwar Europe’ (Volkswagen Stiftung/Bauhaus-Universität Weimar)

The audience is presumed to consent to a possible recording on the part of the ICI Berlin.
If you would like to attend the event yet might require assistance, please contact Event Management.

KV Falatório

Image credit: Carla Guagliardi