The South African Registration Act dated 1950, used the term 'coloured' to specify all people who where excluded of an previously defined social group. This fact showed, not only a centrist vision but also a wish to benefit an hierarchical system, and revealed a problem of a racial classification or declassification. This case, as set out in Immanuel Wallerstein's article 'The Construction of Peoplehood: Racism, Nationalism, Ethnicity', helped this sociologist to explain how social circunstances reflect inconsistent constructions and are transformed according to economic conveniences of the capitalist system. This set of interests, that come from structures of power, promotes inequalities and social asymmetries and shows different situations connected to the creation of inconscient divisions which are very significant in behaviours, cultures and living not only regarding territory issues. By demonstrating how the labor system states and creates notions as nation, ethnicity and race this article reveals also how they can be used as control tools.
For the first time on display at Carlos Carvalho, Carlos Noronha Feio will present three series of recent work which help him to explore questions about territory, race and borders. 'Plant Life of the Pacific World' appropriates visual effects of images of nuclear explosion converting them into compositions that make up a mixture of vegetable and floral shapes. This body of work follows a kind of botanical nomenclature assigned by the American Botanist ED Merrill to natural plants of the territories that comprise the Pacific Islands, and that we could find in a book that gives the title to the series. This explosion of colors and shapes hide a shocking historical fact that is observed only by closer look and that comes from an intention to show a relationship between the real and the constructed by the use of particular forms of masking the reality that is presented here in a pleasant and seductive way. 'Native People of the Pacific World' creates two layers of different contexts in which color and trace lines are combined with photos of 'native' people of the Pacific. The exhibition also presents a sound installation ' Do fundo do mar pacífico não se percebiam as diferenças!' that shows a relationship between the first two series.
We may say that one of the common traces between these three series is a practice of appropriation of images with a strong historical significance and identity in order to build on these and with these, a new discourse and a new thought.
