Dar Uma Palavra. Ter Uma Palavra. (Give a Word. Have a Word.)

Dar Uma Palavra. Ter Uma Palavra. (Give a Word. Have a Word.) Documentation of the participatory word exchange project at Largo das Artes, May 12th 2105.

I've been fascinated with the Portuguese language since arriving to Brazil. In particular, with the sing-songy dialect of Brazilian Portuguese spoken in Rio. I regret now not having the time for classes in advance, which would have prepared me with an understanding of the grammar and syntax. But learning on the fly has been fun, especially that (thanks to smart phones and translator apps) help is always at hand. I made best friends with the soft female voice of the text-to-speech translator app from which I learned my pronunciation and, in the studio, I rely constantly on the aid of Brazilian artist friends. Many of them had been living or studying abroad for years or, in the case of the younger ones (being part of the fully connected Millennial generation) have learned fluent English through the Internet. 

Outside of a small circle of travelled or business people, very little English is spoken in Brazil. For this reason, I had decided early to try to communicate in Portuguese as much as possible, only reverting to a feeble voiced "Você fala Inglês? Eu não falo Português." when the conversation situation gets really confusing. 

In the first week of our stay, I was dispatched to our neighborhood drinking water store (armed with a cheat-card of possible sentences that I had made beforehand) to place an order for a home delivery of a replacement wanter tank. (Unless the home has a water filter system, potable water in Rio, sadly, comes from the store in a 20 liter plastic tank.) Five weeks later, I participated in a day-long workshop on Places and the City lead by artists Gustavo Ciriaco and Fernanda Eugenio and attended a two-hour "bate-papo" (chit-chat) with Ernesto Neto (all in Portuguese). Yesterday, I made my first phone call. I still can't muster more than a baby-talk but understand enough to get by and able to comprehend a large percentage of almost any kind of printed information (thanks to other Latin languages I had encountered).

During the participatory project, "Dar Uma Palavra. Ter Uma Palavra." participants not only explain the meaning of the word to me but also patiently correct my pronunciation. The conversations are in Portuguese or, rarely, bi-lingual and most people curiously flip through the log to see the words given by others and to discuss what words they like and why. 

A page from the logbook showing some of the words received. 

Back in Seattle, I had a project idea for some kind of an exchange to be done in Rio that would take place in the public space. With the students of my Art and Social Practice class, we always close the quarter with a project that asks them to learn a forgotten skill and not only to make some kind of a gift with it, but also to document and present their learning process with the purpose of transmitting the making skill to the rest of us. It's a very popular project, and when taken seriously, it results in a great deal of information acquired and in a "white elephant exchange" of the resulting gifts. This gave me the idea for the initial plans for a participatory exchange project in Rio. There are lots of makers here. Many of them conduct their craft on the street: from caning chairs to cooking food. 

For many weeks, I was looking for both a way and a place to exchange various kinds of skills with the public but could not find a simple method for doing it. Slowly, it has become apparent that language itself should be the subject and the material of such exchange. I would be both the transmitter and the beneficiary of words passed on and acquired.  

I act as a scribe, a relay, while everyone who participates by giving a word would also become a receiver. Each card handprinted with the letters of the word arranged in a composition and signed in the back with the word given and the date of the exchange.

I tested simple processes by which I can quickly form any word that is given to me in Portuguese and pass it on to the contributors in some kind of material form as a token of our exchange. Since my last project involved cutting out words, my first attempt for this was in the form of cutting vinyl, which proved to be a slow multi-step process. After a few hours of brainstorming with the British artist Claire Nichols, which helped to clear my mind and articulate some do's and don'ts of my priorities, I quickly arrived at the final solution: using the cut-outs of individual letters as rubber stamps. The words then can be arranged from the letters in the form of concrete poetry, following the venerable Brazilian tradition of Augusto de Campos, Ferreira Gullar, Eduardo Kac, Lygia Pape and others. Each word is printed to be given away as a greeting card size text-object. 

Building the letter-poem.

Some of the printed cards ready to be taken away. 

During residencies, ideas are turned into projects on a rather short order. Often, they would deserve longer time to mature but time goes by quickly and there is much more to see, consider and do! 

In a matter of a weekend, I've had the wood cut and prepared, and have collected all the letters that I wanted to use. During a few late-nighters the stamps were made and I was able to conduct the first test run of the project during the reception of “Transição e Queda,” a group exhibition that opened on May 12th at Largo das Artes. 

The typography for each letter was selected from my own photographs of Rio street signs and markings, including business logos, official and informal hand-made street signage as well as graffiti. Each letter is re-drawn on a 3x3cm scale, cut in rubber and glued on a wooden block.   

Lacking the proper tools at Largo, I had to find a neighborhood shop selling wood (madeira) and talk this nice man into cutting it into little blocks for me. After our lengthy negotiation he climbed up to the attic to find a piece of material, then came down with something very different from what we had agreed upon. Next, he set the rusty old table saw and cut it to the exact square stock, then into the pieces I asked for. He even had to make the tool with which he pushed the tiny blocks through the saw. He only charged me for the wood and not for his labor and taught me words like "lixa" (sandpaper). He was perplexed to hear that I needed these for an art project. The wood is some kind of native Brazilian wood. Smells delicious and has a beautiful grain.