Rosângela Rennó was an invited artist at the Stiftung Rheinisch-Westfälisches Wirtschaftsarchiv zu Köln (RWWA) as part of the second edition of the Artist Meets Archive programme.
In her long-standing artistic work, Rennó explores the relationship between remembering and forgetting. She critically examines Brazil's past and investigatively works out hidden information from the pictures of popular photography collections. By appropriating found images, she works against forgetting. Thus she transforms small flea market prints into large museum prints. She transfers a stock of images into complex installations, sometimes as projections or in connection with film. In this way she not only creates an encounter with anachronistic image carriers and historical artefacts, but also exposes new readings and alternative narratives.
Since the 1980s I have been attracted to vanacular images and a little later to archive images, because I always thought that through this kind of images I could make a connection to people and humanity. Especially in Brazil, I think that our history is written by the lack of information and images, and not in moments that have been well documented and told by the people.
Rosângela Rennó out of the video: Rosângela Rennó – on Rio Montevideo, The Photographers Gallery, 2016
https://vimeo.com/422524387 (404)
More information about Rosângela Rennó
Participants
Between 2018 and 2024, 4 editions of the Artist Meets Archive programme have been realized so far. A total of 20 artists took part and presented their projects at the Photoszene Festival in Cologne.