Yoyo – What Goes Around Comes Around

In light of its mission to promote public understanding and appreciation of contemporary art, SESC São Paulo is hosting a show that harks back to the playful and liberating world of childhood. Entitled Yoyo – Tudo que vai, volta (Yoyo – What Goes Around Comes Around), the exhibition presents pieces aimed specifically at drawing in a younger audience, meaningfully ensuring children’s active and intentional participation. This set-up and design helps build a continuous and creative movement of action and reaction, back and forth.

Curated by artist and designer Ricardo Ribenboim, the project of the exhibition was initially conceived by Liana Mazer, editor-in-chief of the independent children’s magazine YOYO. Nine Brazilian artists have collaborated with works that span different generations, languages and topics, but fall under the same overarching curatorial concept.

Thus, from May 5 to July 22, 2018, SESC Belenzinho will host this joint show with installations from Dudi Maia Rosa, Franklin Cassaro, Gisela Motta and Leandro Lima, Guto Lacaz, Lia Chaia, Raul Mourão, Regina Silveira and Sandra Cinto. The public is invited to interact and experiment at will; in a nod to the essence of the exhibit, SESC has gone to great lengths to extend viewing and include a public program into the overall project.

For the show, each artist was tasked to think, create and guide their artwork as an open and sincere dialogue with the minds and world of children. Some have contributed with truly unique pieces closely related to their ongoing work, such as Dudi Maia Rosa’s representation of clouds, which they can use to imagine new forms; or Franklin Cassaro’s floating cushions, which form a field for flight; or Guto Lacaz’ mechanical installation, which is activated only when the public interacts with the piece, creating a circuit where the simplified streetcars can move about. Other artists reinvented and reworked their pieces for the Yoyo exhibition: Lia Chaia adapted her piece, offering the public Clogpointers in different sizes, and Raul Mourão adapted his pieces to the young audience by designing movable swings.

And then there is Regina Silveira, who brings us Hanging Shadows, which pulls from her vast oeuvre into how we imagine shadows and projections, and invites the young visitors to make their own shadows using everyday objects, including items hanging on the metal hooks along the wall. Sandra Cinto has created a system that projects the ocean in 3D, and children can manipulate the images as if they were props on a stage. Finally, Gisela Motta and Leandro Lima, who often work together, have set up a mechanical installation that works like a giant lung. Inside, they have installed 30 balloons, all connected to a compressor that inflates and deflates them in continual, rhythmic synchronicity.

The curator sought not only to ensure an interactive show, but to conceive and hold workshops in conjunction with the SESC Belenzinho Social and Educational Center, offering new possibilities to approach art and engage the public in artistic practice. In fact, the participating artists are leading workshops throughout the exhibition that involve the activation and manipulation of their pieces. These activations promote greater processing and engaged participation, stimulating children to dialogue with the art-making process through reacting to and appropriating the medium.

Equally important is the special edition of the magazine YOYO that has been printed especially for the occasion. This issue is dedicated to contemporary art and includes creative activities that incorporate all aspects of the exhibition. Kiko Farkas was responsible for the graphic design of this edition, which includes interviews with artists conducted by the children themselves. The magazine, of course, is a complementary element of the exhibit and essential mediating material for this type of exhibition setting.