Thank you to artist Christa Joo Hyun D’Angelo for drawing my attention to this work by Brazilian artist Jonathas de Andrade. Andrade organised a race through the centre of the Brazilian city of Recife for the carters who – despite being officially outlawed by city officials who see them as an afront to their notion of a modern, fully urban community – are a daily part of the economy and landscape. It’s called “Uprising” (somewhat wince-inducing but also magnificent photos of the horses at this link):
The rite blessed invisibility in a celebratory existence. The men with the carts didn’t give a fig for the movie, and the project became a pretext for taking the city in a coup and at the gallop. The ground was churned up – the paw, the horseshoe, the horseshit. Characters were incorporated. Any protagonism of the team was wiped out and dissolved into the mass. The front was taken by the horseman, a herdsman minstrel bellowing out improvised verses about the scene, the cart flying along. Forces came to the fore pulling on the reins; rhythm; momentum – ecstasy and disobedience. The sound of the horses’ hooves on the asphalt was multiplied, echoed off the walls of the buildings and spread throughout the city. The sound silenced and set the boundaries of the territory. An atmosphere of a trance being underway. Presence of spirit, incorporation of desire – Pure Candomblé*. The uprising became more that of the tremendous, sensory and corporeal passing into being of formulating policy, and the project gained new meaning from its own reinvention.