Bene Fonteles

Activist, plastic artist, writer, art curator, poet, shaman, and Brazilian composer, Bene Fonteles also produces works linked to mail art and research into new artistic expressions. Ecological militancy is a striking feature in his work, being the creator of the "Artist Movement for Nature", which since 1986 promotes ecological awareness and environmental education through art. Much of his work dialogues with the aesthetics and poetics of indigenous cultures. Tempo Templo’, 2018. is a round installation with six 19th-century English iron columns topped with stones found on the property. They themselves support iron sculptures symbols of African culture, seven baobabs, and various medicinal and aromatic plants... the work must be regularly activated by performances involving the neighbors of the Usina and visitors. It is a tribute to the African people who were humiliated and enslaved in the sugar cane mills during colonization. Now the symbols of their Orixás triumph in the capital-stones over the English iron columns of a country that both enslaved and “colonized” cultures. They triumph like samba and other arts not only in the so-called Brazilian popular culture, through the voice of its Afro-descendants and the mestizo people from Brazil. Bené Fonteles, 1953, Born in Bragança/ Pará, lives and works in the country in Minas Gerais.