The 4th Edition of the RISCO Festival Joins Forces with JUNTES, a Strategic Partnership with ILGA World, Center for Feminist Foreign Policy, and Outburst Arts with support from the Nebula Fund.
RISCO Festival is excited to announce its integral partnership with JUNTES, a key initiative involving several international organizations and art festivals: ILGA World, Center for Feminist Foreign Policy, and Outburst Arts, with generous support from the Nebula Fund. JUNTES serves as a space for strategic dialogue among feminist and trans organizations, media actors and artists focused on countering the harms of the global anti-gender movement. The goal is to strengthen feminist and trans solidarity through self-critical reflection on current advocacy narratives and practices, employing art as a transformative tool to humanize debates and explore new responses to pressing societal issues.
With a 100% free and open program, the RISCO Festival highlights Brazil's queer art production while solidifying its role as an international platform for cultural and artistic exchange. Events will take place at various partner venues, including Casa Coração and Studio Esponja, as well as the Museum of Sexual Diversity. The RISCO Festival's fourth edition offers a rich program of visual arts, films, theatre, dance, music, and cabaret.
Through its collaboration with JUNTES and partner organizations ILGA World, Center for Feminist Foreign Policy, and Outburst Arts, the festival aims to foster solidarity among global trans and feminist movements and collectives. This comes at a crucial time of extreme societal hostility and polarization, specifically focusing on the anti-gender & anti-rights movement. This requires creating the space for dialogue and collaboration through thoughtful reflection on advocacy work and developing coordinated cross-movement strategies for more significant social and political impact.
Natalia Mallo artistically directs the festival and features Indra Haretrava as this year's associate curator. The diverse and multifaceted program seeks to connect activists, artists, and policy experts, focusing on the role of art in changing narratives, opening hearts and minds, and enabling necessary dialogues. The program includes international attractions like the design and journalism exhibition SOY, curated by Argentine writer Liliana Viola, an original text by playwright Jordanian-German Raphael Khouri, as well as emerging and established names in the Brazilian scene like Renata Carvalho, Assucena, Ayô Tupinambá, and others. The events also feature various DJs from different generations and styles, such as Gisa Gabriel, DJ Transvegana, and Festa Alicate, with Filipe Catto, Ali Prando, Alma Negrot, and others.
"Today, it is urgent for us to view art and symbolic production as strategic elements. The aim is to create solidarity bonds between movements like JUNTES and to counteract the well-organized, ultra-conservative movements that incessantly attack us. The need to reach new audiences and break out of our echo chambers is more urgent than ever, and art holds that transformative power," says Natalia Mallo, the Artistic Director of the RISCO Festival.
We hope to create a space for pleasure and fun for our JUNTES participants and the queer and feminist community in São Paulo and their allies to solidify alliances and build a united movement in solidarity. Moreover, with great anticipation, we reveal a second leg of JUNTES, which Outburst Arts will host in Belfast in mid-November 2023.