We are excited to host visual artists Adama Delphine Fawundu (USA), Hamedine Kane (Senegal/Belgium/France), Iris Schabert (Germany), and Chris Tigra (Brazil); photographers Adriano Machado (Brazil) and Alex Oliveira (Brazil); filmmaker Gabriela I. Gaia (Brazil), and writer Shayan Lotfi (Iran/USA).

This marks our first residency session of 2025, a year already defined by a sharp rise in nationalism and authoritarianism worldwide, with cultural institutions facing mounting pressures of censorship, defunding, and ideological persecution. In this context, we reaffirm our commitment to international and cross-cultural exchange; to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and to the central role that artist residencies and other cultural institutions have in supporting artists as they help us navigate through these dark times.

Partnerships and other forms of collaboration between cultural institutions are now more important than ever. With this in mind, we are thrilled to announce that this year we will continue the ongoing partnerships with the Institute for Diversity in the Arts from Stanford University (USA) and the Fondation des Artistes (France) while celebrating new collaborations with Factory International (UK), the Year of France in Brazil (France and Senegal), the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo (Brazil), and more!

We are also pleased to host Adriano Machado and Alex Oliveira with the support of the Secretary of Culture of the State of Bahia, through the Fundo de Apoio para Ações Continuadas da Secretaria de Cultura do Estado da Bahia – SECULT. SECULT’s support allows us to host more artists from Bahia and further democratize access to the profound benefits that residencies can have for artists and the surrounding communities.

Adama Delphine Fawundu
Multidisciplinary Arts
USA

Adama Delphine Fawundu is a Brooklyn-based visual artist of Mende, Bubi, and Krim ancestry. Her multidisciplinary practice spans photography, video, textiles, and performance, creating works that explore ancestral memory, indigenization, and radical imagination. Drawing from African ontologies and Indigenous knowledge systems, her art investigates the resilience of African and diasporic cultures across time and space.

Fawundu is the co-author of MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora and has received prestigious awards, including the Guggenheim Fellowship, Catchlight Fellowship, Anonymous Was A Woman Award, and the Rema Hort Mann Artist Grant. Her work is held in permanent collections at institutions such as the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Princeton University Museum, Bryn Mawr College, Norton Museum of Art, and the David C. Driskell Art Collection. She is also an Assistant Professor of Visual Arts at Columbia University.

At Sacatar, Fawundu will deepen her exploration of Candomblé and the retention of African-descended spiritual belief systems, particularly those rooted in Yoruba, Luba, and Kongo philosophies.

Fawundu was selected for her accomplished career, her unique perspective on themes of the African Diaspora, and the potential of her work to resonate deeply in Bahia. Her practice offers multiple points of contact and collaboration with local traditions, artists, and communities.

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Adriano Machado
Photography
Brazil
SECULT

Adriano Machado is a visual artist from Feira de Santana, Bahia, who works with photography, video, installation, and performance to explore themes of identity, territory, memory, and trust. His practice investigates how Black individuals construct life strategies in new environments, which he refers to as Afro-inventive territories.

Machado is currently a PhD student in Visual Arts at UFBA and has exhibited his work internationally, including at the Dakar Biennial (Senegal, 2022) and the 31st CCSP Exhibition Program (São Paulo, 2021). He has also participated in residencies such as Latitude AIR (Chicago, 2022) and Pivô Pesquisa (São Paulo, 2020).

At Sacatar, Machado will develop an audiovisual installation using the metaphor of the “electric fish” to examine Black experiences worldwide. This work builds upon films and photographs he has been producing in various cities over the past months.

Machado was selected for his innovative approach to combining photography, video, and performance, as well as his exploration of Afro-inventive territories. At this pivotal moment in his career, the residency offers an opportunity to connect with other established artists and further expand his experimental practice.

Adriano Machado’s residency is supported by the Secretary of Culture of the State of Bahia (SECULT) through the Fundo de Cultura Para Ações Continuadas da Secretaria de Cultura do Estado da Bahia.

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Alex Oliveira
Photography
Brazil
SECULT

Alex Oliveira is a photographer and visual artist from Jequié, Bahia. His work combines photography, performance, and urban intervention to explore collective memory and popular performances in Brazil, examining how these elements shape cultural and artistic narratives.

In 2024, Oliveira won the Diário Contemporâneo Photography Prize in Belém, Pará, and in 2022, he was a winner of the Bahia Visual Arts Salon. He has also been nominated for the Pipa Award (2021) and was a finalist in the 1st Adelina Photography Award. Since 2020, he has been based in Jequié, where he founded CASA 1145, a shared creative studio and artist residency.

At Sacatar, Oliveira will focus on Fotoperformance Popular, an ongoing photographic archive he has been developing since 2019. The project documents popular performances and celebrations in cities across Brazil, including Belo Horizonte, Uberlândia, Senhor do Bonfim, Salvador, Santa Luzia, Cachoeira, Jequié, and Teresina. During the residency, he will experiment with assembling images and narratives to create a preliminary sketch for an artist’s book.

Oliveira was selected for his profound exploration of Brazilian popular culture and his ability to connect local traditions with broader artistic narratives. The residency offers an opportunity to expand his practice in dialogue with the environment and communities of Itaparica, potentially revealing new connections and contrasts between Jequié and Itaparica.

Alex Oliveira’s residency is supported by the Secretary of Culture of the State of Bahia (SECULT) through the Fundo de Cultura Para Ações Continuadas da Secretaria de Cultura do Estado da Bahia.

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Chris Tigra
Multidisciplinary Arts
Brazil

Chris Tigra is a multidisciplinary artist based in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Born in São Paulo to parents who migrated from the Northeast of Brazil, her work is deeply influenced by experiences of movement and displacement. She explores themes of territory, identity, and community, often combining art and activism.

Tigra works with installation, sound, and photographic interventions. She is a member of Quando Coletivo, creating art-based projects that imagine spaces of pleasure and freedom for homeless cis and trans women.

At Sacatar, Tigra will develop Circuito dos Diálogos Ocultos, an experimental sound system made of interconnected tubes that enable remote communication through sound propagation. Using materials like bamboo and industrial waste, the project is inspired by the survival strategies of marginalized groups, including enslaved Africans, who developed secret forms of communication under oppression. The work explores themes of secret confabulations, sensitive listening, and improvisation.

Tigra was selected for her community-oriented practice and her dedication to addressing pressing social and historical issues. Her residency at Sacatar offers an opportunity to deepen her research and engage with Itaparica’s communities.

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Gabriela I. Gaia
Moving Image
Brazil

Gabriela I. Gaia is a filmmaker born in 1995 in the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro. Her work blends documentary and speculative fiction, seeking a decolonial aesthetic and ethic. Inspired by filmmakers such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Claire Denis, Mati Diop, and Adirley Queirós, her films evoke mystery and physicality.

Gaia’s work has been exhibited at MoMA (USA), the Rotterdam International Film Festival (Netherlands), and the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival (France). She directed the short films Escasso (2022) and Afeto (2019) and was nominated for the 51st Emmy for the children’s series Quintal TV (2023). She also won the PCI de Directorxs de Cine award at the 35th Cinelatino for her upcoming project.

At Sacatar, Gaia will develop the first treatment of the script for M’ÁGUA, her debut feature film, as well as a two-minute teaser shot in Itaparica. The speculative fiction film will explore faith, grief, and reminiscences in interracial relationships between women in post-colonial Brazil, while investigating stories of female resistance and Afro-Brazilian religions.

Gaia was selected for her innovative approach to storytelling and her potential to grow as an artist. At this pivotal moment in her career, as she tackles her first feature film, the residency offers crucial support to expand her practice.

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Hamedine Kane
Multidisciplinary Arts
Mauritania > Senegal

Hamedine Kane is a Senegalese multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker based between Dakar, Brussels, and Paris. Through film, photography, installation, performance, drawing, and engraving, his work explores themes of exile, migration, heritage, and the political and social transformations of post-independence African nations, particularly Senegal. He is also deeply interested in the influence of African, African-American, and Afro-diasporic literature on political, social, and environmental movements.
Kane has participated in numerous international festivals and biennales, including the Dakar and Berlin Biennales (2022), the Momenta Biennale (2021), the Taipei Biennale (2020), and exhibitions as part of the Africa2020 season in France.
At Sacatar, Kane is developing a research project focused on three major Black American writers who lived in exile in Paris during the 1940s: Richard Wright, Chester Himes, and James Baldwin. His project is a speculative inquiry into “situated knowledge,” drawing on testimonies from researchers, literary critics, historians, geographers, and local residents. Inspired by anthropologist Anna Tsing’s concept of “the art of observing,” Kane will weave these narratives into a work that reimagines the protest novels of these writers, paying close attention to their experiences of exile and identity.
Kane was selected for his ability to connect global diasporic narratives with local contexts. Bahia’s history offers multiple points of contact and expansion for his research, particularly in relation to Black intellectual production in the 1940s and 1950s.

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Iris Schabert
Visual Arts
Germany

Iris Schabert is a visual artist from Munich, Germany, with a background in fine arts and goldsmith design. For the past 15 years, she has focused on experimental ceramics, particularly porcelain, collaborating with international workshops to expand her techniques and artistic expression.

Schabert’s work explores the relationship between humans and nature, drawing inspiration from natural phenomena such as fragility, decay, and growth. Like a modern alchemist, she transforms and combines seemingly incompatible materials, creating new forms and connections.

At Sacatar, Schabert will explore the intertwined histories of Europe and Brazil through the lens of sugarcane cultivation and its impact on people and the environment. She will focus on two groups of plants: cash crops like sugarcane, introduced during colonization, and displaced indigenous flora.

Using molds of these plants, she will experiment with sugar as a casting material, highlighting its symbolic significance in this context.

Schabert was selected for her innovative approach to materials and her ability to connect historical and ecological themes through her work, which can be relevant to Bahia.

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Shayan Lotfi
Literature
Iran > USA

Shayan Lotfi is an Iranian-American playwright. He is currently the Tow Playwright-in-Residence at the Atlantic Theater, where his play What Became of Us premiered. Lotfi has received the Horton Foote Award from the Dramatists Guild, a Citation of Excellence from the Laurents/Hatcher Foundation, and two MacDowell Fellowships. He holds degrees from New York University, the London School of Economics, and the University of British Columbia, and he also works as an urban planner.

Lotfi’s work explores how urban environments, political institutions, and economic systems shape daily life and interpersonal relationships. His plays examine shifting notions of pluralism, the tensions within liberal multicultural spaces, and the intersection of geography, history, and identity. He is particularly interested in the psychological effects of migration and the evolving relationship between the Global North and Global South.

At Sacatar, Lotfi will develop a full-length play chronicling multiple generations of a single family, exploring how their lives are shaped by migration and cultural shifts.

Lotfi was selected for the potential that his experience in Bahia has of re-contextualizing some of the main themes in his work, such as pluralism, migration, and identity.

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