2023-2024 EDITION

MASTAREL: INLAND WATERS

Elaine Arruda and Master João Aires

It is more than a decade since visual artist Elaine Arruda from Pará has immersed into Salt Port, a port complex located in the landscape of Guajará Bay, in the historic center of Belém, created in 1933. Even today, these ports connect Belém to the islands and narrow rivers that surround the capital. In these places, populations of indigenous, riverine and urban origins coexist. The port functions also as a place for selling Amazonian spices, being considered a reference in this service in the 1930s.

In these intersections of social, economic and cultural realities, knowledge and practices linked to the river stand out in the port, such as naval typography, construction of wooden boats, fishing nets, among others. In this territory, Elaine Arruda has been articulating her work, which began at Metalúrgica Santa Terezinha, where she developed large-scale engravings, resulting in the artist's master's thesis “Paisagens Gráficas”.

Later, during the doctorate, in the same metallurgical warehouse, other occupation experiences emerged with collaborative actions by other artists. From this field of activity, expansion took place into the port territory, taking Salt Port Market as its route. This movement has intensified and became a collective called “Aparelho”, completing ten years of existence in February 2025.

“Aparelho” collective has intensified occupations of happenings that involve different types of people, such as port residents, artists who collaborate in the actions, workers, stallholders, children, passers-by and the surrounding public.

One of Elaine Arruda’s characteristic is that she plays a fundamental role in reformulating the relationship between art and local, not only as a landscape or built environment, but also with the social and geographic space. Among this knowledge, the artist from Pará brings to light artisanal weaving of fishing nets as well as wooden shipbuilding.

MEETING THE MASTER AND MASTAREL’S NAVIGATION DIARY

Elaine's meeting with Pará’s master of naval carpentry João Aires, who has worked in the area for over 28 years and today operates in Salt Port, has strengthened the partnership with the local, and started a teaching-learning process with regard to construction of items related to naval carpentry.

Then the installation “Mastarel” emerged, elaborated by the artist in 2016 on top of Salt Port Market. A work built with a current vessel mast, together with the assembly of an old vessel.

In these mappings of affections and memory, “Mastarel”, in 2019, sailed to Amazonia Bank Cultural Space to build narratives, resignifying, to a certain extent, the place of art sociability, in resistance and existence, claiming the right to its own life. In the same year, it also navigated to the patio of Pará State Museum.

In late 2022, Mastarel ran through the river where Master João was born, and naming the installation after rivers in the Amazon is an act of resistance in the face of erasure processes. Thus, Cururu was produced at Atelier + Casa, an autonomous space that houses contemporary art projects. This work, carried out experimentally with a laboratory character, is activated with the presence of people inside, in moments of sharing provoked by art and life.

Moreover, in 2023, Mastarel as an offshoot of Cururu River, also in an immersive and relational character, anchored in the First Arts Biennial of Amazonias, and the artist allied her life story by activating the memory of Tijuquaquara River where her grandmother was born. The artist crossed three generations; it was magical to see her grandmother Terezinha; her mother, Sheyla; and herself sailing along the river, searching for memories and stories.

And after this immersion in Tijuquaquara, Mastarel’s route was led by the inland rivers and returned to Salt Port Market. The roof was renovated. The internal painting highlighted the unique beauty of the building. There was also a “washing” moment when the community came together and washed the market as an act of care and belonging.

And, this entire process and preparation is for the Rigging act that illuminates the top of the market full of meanings, and reflections on identification processes. The community began to see itself represented by/in the place of transience that was built, as the boat that docked there, like them, settled on the edge of the city and on a building under a constant effort for survival.

Salt Port anchors the exhibition here, with multiple languages obtained through experimentation, juxtapositions and overlapping of materials and fabrics of symbolic value visible in photographs, engravings, drawings, objects and videos. The artist's production legitimizes the dialogicity founded on dreams, memories, concerns and creations.

These different layers of human experiences permeate the art and life of artist Elaine Arruda from the perspective of the body, landscape and architecture. The inland waters, navigated by Elaine and João, have imposed themselves and bet on the recognition of vast complex territories. Be they geographic, artistic, social, affective, political or economic.

Mastarel has been temporarily anchored and hitched in Salt Port – Until the next trip!