Ludgi Porto

Relational Bodies: Possession and Exorcism in Artistic Practice

Fall Semester 2024

Ludgi’s project explores the spectrum between exorcism, possession, and artistic practices, focusing on the artist Lygia Clark and the Macumba rituals from Brazil. It investigates the possibilities of how Macumba may have influenced Clark’s therapeutic work in performance art.

Central to the approach are the concepts of "decolonizing the unconscious," based on Suely Rolnik's work, and Macumba as a set of spiritual practices that foster a connection between humans and the enchanted invisible lives, as presented by Luiz Antonio Simas. The project seeks to blend and complicate these definitions through artistic practices that incorporate exorcism, possession, psychotherapy, and voice as a key element in ritualistic expression.

The research addresses Ludgi’s personal, complicated racial ambivalence: in Brazil, her country of origin, the artist is considered white, while in Europe, she is perceived as a person of color. This multi-layered identity shapes the project as a form of social and historical reparation—a collective exorcism of trauma linked to colonialism. The project aims to challenge and decolonize possible unconsciousness, touching the impossible and offering an alternative way to engage with collective memory and identity through artistic practice.

_{Credits: Other Kinds of Now, 2023 - ritual by Ludgi Porto - Photo by Velentin Hennig}