1995

Public art project and video installation with audio

1.286 wax castings and 2.500 plaster moulds 

Loop: 46’34” | Variable dimensions

Throughout 1995, Dias & -Riedweg hosted a mobile workshop for children and adolescents living on the streets of Rio de Janeiro. The artists taught the youngsters to make wax castings of their own hands and feet, after the tradition of amulets and votive offerings, the reifications of some wish or need. The process, which was recorded on video, resulted in 1,286 pieces presented as a large–scale installation, a sort of collective ex–voto transferred from the religious domain into the museum space, where it addresses society directly.

This work was produced at a time when Rio was experiencing frequent and often fatal attacks on children and adolescents living on the streets, including mass murders around the Candelária cathedral, and in the Vigário Geral community. The city’s urban violence is directly linked to the drug trade and to the heavy–handed tactics of a corrupt police force. Although various social movements and NGOs emerged, public care and educational policies have barely begun to be implemented. By the time the Devotionalia Project came to a close in 2004, more than the half of its 600 participants had lost their lives under violent circumstances. As an act of remembrance, Catherine David commissioned a video protocol of the ten–year process and the artists donated the original installation to the National Museum of Fine Arts of Rio, where it remains as a testament to these children’s existence.