December 13 - February 14, 2022
From Fotofest:
“FotoFest announces its newly created Digital Residency program and the program’s inaugural artist project, Last Party, by Leonardo Ramadinha. Between December 13, 2021–February 14, 2022, FotoFest presents images by Brazilian artist Leonardo Ramadinha through an exhibition taking place on the FotoFest website. Ramadinha’s series Last Party was selected by FotoFest Executive Director Steven Evans from the numerous portfolios the FotoFest team reviewed at the 2021 FestFoto POA Festival and Portfolio Review. Subsequently, Ramadinha worked with FotoFest Associate Curator Max Fields to produce a digital experience that reflects the atmosphere and sense of community cultivated through the online parties Ramadinha attended and documented throughout the early phases of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Following the Covid-19 pandemic global shut down of early 2020, dancers, ravers, DJs, and club kids began to co-opt the tailored-for-business video conference platform Zoom, utilizing the platform’s multi-video “meeting” function to hold online dance parties. From their bedrooms, living rooms, and kitchens, partygoers from around the globe signed on, turned their speakers up, and danced alone, but together virtually. Leonardo Ramadinha’s series Last Party offers a glimpse into these parties through a collection of screenshot images made by the artist throughout the pandemic. These images speak to the collective mental and physical perseverance of youth around the globe. They are a testament to the resilience of community, showing a way that people can create space for transcendent experiences even in the face of catastrophe.
Please be advised this exhibition includes photographic imagery containing nudity and adult themes which may not be appropriate for all audiences; viewer discretion is advised.
About the artist
Leonardo Ramadinha (b. Carioca, 1977, lives and works in Rio de Janeiro) holds an undergraduate degree in social communication from Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, a degree in visual arts at Universidade Estácio de Sá, and a postgraduate degree in photography and social sciences from Universidade Candido Mendes.
Ramadinha has participated in group and individual exhibitions in Brazil, Argentina, USA, Colombia, Germany, and Slovenia. In 2000, he was one of the artists awarded the Rio Jovem Artista Award. In 2003, Recoleta Cultural Center in Buenos Aires awarded Ramadinha an opportunity to show his work in the Encuentros Abiertos, a festival affiliated with the Festival da Luz. In 2007, he was selected by the Wooloo Independent Curator Program for the Urban Space project which included sharing his work at exhibitions at the New Life Shop Gallery in Berlin, at OI Futuro, Rio de Janeiro, and at FotoPub International Photo Festival in Slovenia. In October 2013, Ramadinha participated in the collective of Brazilian artists “Brazil am Main” at Galerie Söffing, in Frankfurt, Germany, held during the Frankfurt Book Fair, which featured Brazil as its honored country. He is one of the editors of the electronic visual arts magazine Verbete.art.
In 2015, Ramadinha founded and became the Director of Espaço Foto Contemporânea, a space dedicated to courses and workshops focusing on photography, contemporary art, and images. He has taught courses in photography, photographic language, and coordinated creation and development projects in contemporary photography for institutions such as POP – Contemporary Thought Pole, Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo – MAM SP, Itaú Bba, among others.
He has four books: About Memories and Dreams (2015), About the Delicacy of Things (2015), Angra dos Reis (2014) and Aquilo que Habita em Mim (2012). He is also featured in collective publications such as Rio Mar Lisboa Rio (2015) released by Barléu and The Creation of the World – Contemporary Brazilian Photography (2010), produced and curated by Eder Chiodetto.
Ramadinha’s works are held in private collections around the globe, including the Joaquim Paiva Collection (MAM-RJ), Beto Silva Collection, Julia and Luiz Porchat Collection, Milton Abirached Collection, and the Márcia and Eduardo Lopes Pontes Collection among many others.
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On View: December 13, 2021 | 12–5 pm
Silver Street Studios, 2000 Edwards Street
Houston, 77007 TX
(713) 223-5522
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