BLOOD IN MY EYES: Art as a Code of Reclamation

Pantanal Favela Studio (PFS) presents Act 2 of the series BLOOD IN MY EYES, an intervention by artist and founder Rosa Luz, marking one of the first aesthetic manifestos produced within the studio.

The work transforms the PFS space into a site of artistic and political experimentation, where painting, performance, and technology intersect to reflect on aesthetic sovereignty and peripheral cultural production.

The studio as a territory of symbolic dispute

In the audiovisual record of the performance, Pantanal Favela Studio ceases to function solely as an artistic production space and becomes a stage for aesthetic occupation. The artworks are transformed into photo-paintings as Rosa Luz uses red as the central element of the intervention — a color that simultaneously evokes memory, trauma, vitality, and resistance.

The work explores how digital technologies can be appropriated as tools for cultural autonomy, rejecting visual standards historically associated with the aesthetic neutralization of peripheral territories.

Aesthetics, technology, and narrative autonomy

The video-performance incorporates visual elements such as grain, glitches, and saturation as part of its artistic language. These elements function as both poetic and political strategies, proposing an aesthetic that embraces materiality and imperfection as fundamental components in the construction of independent narratives.

Within PFS, technology is understood as a tool for creative expansion rather than visual standardization. The work reflects on how peripheral artists can develop their own symbolic and visual codes within the contemporary digital ecosystem.

A manifesto for grassroots artistic production

“Blood in My Eyes” is part of an experimental series investigating the relationship between body, territory, and technology. The project reinforces Pantanal Favela Studio’s mission to operate as an artistic and cultural laboratory based in União de Vila Nova, on the east side of São Paulo.

The initiative seeks to develop new forms of aesthetic circulation, cultural production, and network-building between artists, communities, and the contemporary art market.

Availability for collectors

The audiovisual record of the performance and exclusive photo-paintings created from the work are available for acquisition.

Sales of these works are part of PFS’s hybrid economic model, which supports studio sustainability, artist compensation, and reinvestment in cultural initiatives within the local community.

📩 For inquiries and artwork catalog:pantanalfavelastudio@gmail.com

👉 Read the full curatorial essay on the PFS Substack