50 Golborne | INVITATION | Thursday 22nd March | 6:00 - 8:30PM

RitaGT: Escola ao lado | School next Door:

Lesson nº1 – Learning with Golborne

22nd March - 3rd April 2018

You are cordially invited to the opening of the first solo show in London by Portuguese artist Rita GT.

On the first day, Thursday 22nd March, at 7pm, Rita GT will perform “I am an instrument”, with renowned blufunkmusician Keziah Jones. The programme on Friday and Saturday includes Art historian and writer Yvette Greslé, independent radical scholar, political analyst, curator and cultural critic George Shire and curator Ana Cristina Cachola. Please scroll down for the full exhibition programme.

VENUE: 50 Golborne gallery, 50 Golborne Road, London W10 5PR

PERFORMANCE:  “I am an instrument” with blufunk musician Keziah Jones at 7:00PM sharp

RSVP: info@50golborne-artdesign.com

website: http://www.50golborne-artdesign.com/

The School next door is laid out in the gallery with purposely conceived flat-pack furniture made as a collaboration between Rita GT, the architect Miguel Coutinho and the carpenters of the city council of her hometown. It features a series of artworks that Rita GT created for the site: photographs, ceramics, works on paper, and sound installations -inspired by research, interviews and performances she executed during previous residencies in this London neighbourhood.

Rita GT has drawn on the experience of the Portuguese community that arrived in the Golborne Road in the 60s and early 70s as a starting point for the artworks. That particular phase of immigration had as a background the- often forgotten in other parts of Europe, including in the UK- authoritarian, colonial Portuguese regime Estado Novo which was still fighting against Angola in its War of Independence, and drafting young male Portuguese civilians until its end only in 1974.

The School next door will open with three days of ‘classes’ aiming  to give equal voices to the moderators and the audience in exchanging ideas and narratives about the area’s rich history of diverse immigration, from the immediate post-war period to the present. The artist will be an ubiquitous presence, as both artist and student, performing and/or documenting them, and encouraging all voices to be heard. The material gathered in the 50 Golborne Gallery will be the starting point for the next Schools Next Door that will be launched in other capital cities in Europe and Africa over the two next years.

About Rita GT

Rita GT was born in Porto in 1980; She lives and works between Viana do Castelo in Portugal and Angola’s capital city of Luanda. She received the Moving Africa scholarship in 2013 awarded by the Goethe Institute through the Wits University (Johannesburg, South Africa), is the founder of the e-studio Luanda project and was the selected commissioner of Angola’s Pavilion in the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015. She has exhibited, among others, at Gallery Belo-Galsterer, Lisbon (2017); Patch, Porto (2017); ICAF, Lagos (2017); Efeito-Suruba, Lisbon (2017); KunstKraftWerk, Leipzig & Freies Museum/Savvy Contemporary, Berlin (2015); Museu do Chiado, Lisbon (2015/16); Instituto Camões, Luanda(2014); UNAP, Luanda (2012); Instituto Camões, Luanda (2014); the Rothschild Prize, Lisbon (2007).

Gentileza: Rita GT y Golborne Gallery

His Hands Were Gentle Selected Lyrics of Victor Jara

Friday 30 March 7:30 pm. at Bolivar Hall 54-56 Grafton Way London, W1T 5DL to commemorate and celebrate the life and work of legendary singer and song-writer Victor Jara. We hope also to be able to show an excerpt from the film ‘Companero: Victor Jara of Chile’ as well, based on an interview with Victor’s wife, Joan Jara, made by Martin Smith and Stanley Forman in 1975.
Foreword by Joan Jara, Preface by Emma Thompson, Introduction by Martín Espada.
Translations by Martín Espada, Eduardo Embry, John Green, Joan Jara and Adrian Mitchell.

Admission is free.

Information: www.smokestack-books.co.uk

Man is a Creator/ El hombre es un creador

Like lots of other children
I was taught to sweat,
I didn't know what school was,
didn't know how to play.
They dragged me out of bed
early every morning,
and alongside my Dad
I grew up as a worker.

Because I was pretty handy
I got by as a carpenter,
a plasterer and a brick-layer,
a plumber and a mechanic.
Hey! It would have been useful
to have had some sort of schooling.
That would have been one more thing to use –
Man as a creator.

I can build you a house,
I can lay down a road,
make wine that tastes good
and keep a factory smoking,
I go down to the depths of the earth
I conquer all the peaks,
I walk among the stars
and carve furrows all over the earth.

I learned the language
of my masters and bosses,
they killed me over and over
for daring to raise my voice,
but I get up off the ground again
helped by the hands of others.
For now I'm not alone.
Now there are so many of us.


Translated by Joan Jara and Adrian Mitchell

Gentileza de Eduardo Embry

Salud