Meet Our Guest with Maria Teresa Tavares

Maria Teresa Tavares

For this story of Meet the Guest, Guest Work Agency Director and Founder Alana Kushnir interviewed Maria Teresa Tavares, who joined the Agency in 2019 as Project Coordinator.

Maria Teresa is an arts manager from Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Tavares moved to Melbourne in 2016 to undertake a Masters in Arts and Cultural Management at the University of Melbourne. Prior to that, she lived in Sao Paulo and worked at Videobrasil, producing numerous projects including the institution’s contemporary art biennial. She has also organised internet-based festivals for the Sergio Motta Institute in partnership with YouTube and Flickr, and worked as a gallery assistant at leading Brazilian contemporary art galleries, Galeria Nara Roesler and Casa Triangulo. 

In true Guest Work style, you wear many hats and embrace the multi-disciplinary ethos of the organisation. Tell us a little more about those many hats and your approach to your work? 

That’s such a good question, particularly because I think it was exactly the breadth of projects led by Guest Work Agency that drew my attention to the organisation in the first place. Although I’m not a lawyer, I’m very interested in the intersections of art and law. From a curatorial perspective, I’m intrigued by contemporary artists pushing the boundaries on notions of copyright  –  I wrote a master's thesis on the topic back in 2007. From an arts management perspective, my practice is focused on processes and procedures that enable the creation and presentation of thought-provoking art. What fascinates me about Guest Work Agency is the way the organisation makes use of its legal and curatorial expertise to enable sustainable growth for artists and arts organisations. I think it’s easy now to see how Guest Work Agency aligns with my own interests.

Most of my day to day activities in the Agency are related to marketing, audience engagement and event organisation. I’ve organised intimate art experiences at Sydney Contemporary 2019 and this year’s Biennale of Sydney through our collectors' club. Additionally, I have been involved in research and strategic planning for our artist and gallery clients in relation to collection/inventory management, and marketing strategy – digital presence, website redevelopment etc. I have also been working on business development strategies and the delivery of new curatorial projects, which is very exciting. One of my highlights was our digital art exhibitions series at Aesop Sydney – I had the opportunity to work with an inspiring brand and a group of wonderful artists. 

Prior to your move to Melbourne, you worked for Videobrasil for many years. I am aware of its biennial festival for video art, Sesc_Videobrasil, but what else does the organisation do? What parts were you involved in?

Very much like Guest Work Agency, Videobrasil is a multi-faceted organisation. It started in 1983 as a local video art festival and grew to be the most important international art event dedicated to – what at the time was called – electronic arts. Back then, the video art scene was not a part of the mainstream art world. When these worlds collided, the festival reinvented itself and took the form of a contemporary art biennial. However, Videobrasil does more than producing the biennial. In a nutshell, it has a 30-years long artist residency program, holds one of the largest video art collections focused on the Global South in the world, and runs a vibrant art program year-round.

In 2009, I was hired as part of the exhibition management team for Sophie Calle – Take Care of Yourself, a large installation project by the iconic French artist presented by Videobrasil after the Venice Biennale. About two years later I joined the organisation working under the Production Director, who performed a role akin to General Manager. During this period, I was involved on exciting projects such as a solo show of British artist Isaac Julien, an open call to commissioning new artworks with the Delfina Foundation (UK), the website redevelopment and the digitising of the collection, – all on top of my work for the biennial and its touring program. Later on, I moved to a newly created editorial department and project managed the publication of exhibition catalogues and readers, as well as other books. The last publication I was involved with was a book celebrating 30 years of Videobrasil and its legacy.

You have also worked for online festivals for the Sergio Motta Institute, years before online art platforms became accepted by the mainstream art world. What prompted these festivals? What were some of the issues you faced in presenting these? 

The HTTP Festivals were created by Sergio Motta Institute Artist Director Giselle Beiguelman in 2008, as an outreach project. The idea was to engage creatives working with digital that did not necessarily identify themselves as artists. It featured photography, video, audio and even curated tagging within the social media platforms available at the time. This was a critical period in the development of web 2.0 and numerous social media platforms were being born and ending at a rapid rate. There was no Instagram or Bandcamp and MySpace was the largest social network site in the world.

I worked on photography and video festivals in partnership with Flickr and YouTube. It was particularly challenging creating the open call guidelines as we did not have much data to rely on from a risk management perspective. It was also the first time we had a 100% digital marketing strategy which was surprisingly successful. It helped that having a partnership with such large platforms meant being featured for their subscribers’ base. In the end, the biggest challenge was hosting an award ceremony as the awardees were geographically dispersed and live stream tools weren’t available then as they are today. Without much we could do, we decided not to miss the opportunity to throw a party and have fun.

You moved to Melbourne in 2016 to undertake a Masters of Arts and Cultural Management at the University of Melbourne – why Melbourne? Have you found the MA beneficial?

Certainly. I came to Melbourne for international education and experience. As a student, I had more room to experiment and explore the local arts scene. I completed internships at the curatorial department of Asian Arts at the NGV, at the Melbourne Recital Centre’s development department, and joined a research on museum soft power in partnership with ACMI X. I also participated in a business accelerator program and worked as a Public Programs Coordinator at Channels Festival. All after flying to London for a professional development opportunity at Isaac Julien Studio. Phew!

Tell us more about the Brazilian art scene, what was it like pre-COVID? What is it like now?

The Brazilian art scene is wonderfully vibrant and diverse. At this point, it is difficult to grasp the damage of years of far-right government policies underpinning the health, economic and social crisis, which has been exacerbated by the coronavirus. However, our communities are resilient and I believe that they will rise from the ashes. If you can, donate here to support Brazilian First Nations during the pandemic.

Latin American art has a long history of creating politically and socially engaged art. Post-pandemic, I would expect to see an increase in opportunities both locally and internationally for artists working in these streams. There are plenty of names to keep an eye on, but first comes to my mind Flávio Cerqueira, Rosana Paulino, Ayrson Heráclito, Paulo Nazareth, Sônia Gomes, Denilson Baniwa, Jonathas De Andrade, Cláudio Bueno e João Simões.

Are you an artist, gallery or other arts organisation in need of assistance with redeveloping your website, managing your inventory, creating organisational policies or digital strategies? Get in touch with Maria Teresa here.