All Directions At Once
All Directions At Once | Credits: Luiza Prado
AllDirectionsAtOnceArtInstituteOfChicago1.tif | Credits: Art Institute Of Chicago
AllDirectionsAtOnceArtInstituteOfChicago3.tif | Credits: Art Institute Of Chicago
AllDirectionsAtOnceArtInstituteOfChicago2.tif | Credits: Art Institute Of Chicago
All Directions At Once / Luiza Prado | Credits: Art Institute Of Chicago
All Directions at Once is a web-based artwork that charts histories of reproductive control in Abya Yala, the name used by indigenous peoples of the Americas to refer to the American continent. The animated graphic essay, programmed in JavaScript, relies on the input of a user: when they stop moving the cursor, the website layers vividly colored, flashing GIFs and texts that shift between provocations and poetic reflections. Moving the cursor reactivates the animation and produces a new composition. With each visit to the website, the user thus creates a unique iteration of the artwork. When exhibited, the work takes on the form of a multi-media immersive display, where monitors playing recorded demonstrations of the interactive website are superimposed onto walls covered in analog versions of the work’s graphics and words.
The work follows the path of ayoowiri, or the peacock flower—a plant with brightly colored red-and-yellow flowers that grows in the tropical areas of Abya Yala. During the European occupation of the land, an infusion of this plant was often used as a contraceptive (and, in stronger doses, as an abortifacient) amongst Indigenous and African communities—a strategy of reproductive resistance within the context of colonial domination and enslavement. What kinds of modernities are birthed through these acts of refusal? Through the stories of ayoowiri and other contraceptive and abortifacient plants, this non-linear, animated graphic essay explores conceptions of radical communal care and unravels the poetic dimensions of excess as a fragmented, fast-paced pluri-verse, meshing together timelines; a disjointed collective, moving to all directions at once.
All Directions At Once was acquired by the Art Institute of Chicago in 2022, and was the first internet-based work to have been added to their permanent collection.
All Directions at Once is a web-based artwork that charts histories of reproductive control in Abya Yala, the name used by indigenous peoples of the Americas to refer to the American continent. The animated graphic essay, programmed in JavaScript, relies on the input of a user: when they stop moving the cursor, the website layers vividly colored, flashing GIFs and texts that shift between provocations and poetic reflections. Moving the cursor reactivates the animation and produces a new composition. With each visit to the website, the user thus creates a unique iteration of the artwork. When exhibited, the work takes on the form of a multi-media immersive display, where monitors playing recorded demonstrations of the interactive website are superimposed onto walls covered in analog versions of the work’s graphics and words.
The work follows the path of ayoowiri, or the peacock flower—a plant with brightly colored red-and-yellow flowers that grows in the tropical areas of Abya Yala. During the European occupation of the land, an infusion of this plant was often used as a contraceptive (and, in stronger doses, as an abortifacient) amongst Indigenous and African communities—a strategy of reproductive resistance within the context of colonial domination and enslavement. What kinds of modernities are birthed through these acts of refusal? Through the stories of ayoowiri and other contraceptive and abortifacient plants, this non-linear, animated graphic essay explores conceptions of radical communal care and unravels the poetic dimensions of excess as a fragmented, fast-paced pluri-verse, meshing together timelines; a disjointed collective, moving to all directions at once.
All Directions At Once was acquired by the Art Institute of Chicago in 2022, and was the first internet-based work to have been added to their permanent collection.
Direction, web design, animation, programming, script: Luiza Prado
Luiza Prado (BR) (she/they) is an artist and writer. Her work moves between installation and video, using performance and ritual as a way of invitation and activation for audiences. Her practice explores anticolonial and more-than-human strategies in relations and knowledge between food, fertility, infrastructures and technology, and questions what processes are needed for collective concerns of care. She has exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art Warsaw, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, and Mudam Luxembourg, and her work has been collected by the Art Institute of Chicago. She is based in Berlin.
Luiza Prado (BR) (she/they) is an artist and writer. Her work moves between installation and video, using performance and ritual as a way of invitation and activation for audiences. Her practice explores anticolonial and more-than-human strategies in relations and knowledge between food, fertility, infrastructures and technology, and questions what processes are needed for collective concerns of care. She has exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art Warsaw, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, and Mudam Luxembourg, and her work has been collected by the Art Institute of Chicago. She is based in Berlin.
This web-based digital performance or "GIF essay" is based on presenting a number of Brazilian folk herbal contraceptives expressing "radical decolonizing care", aiming to resist the disasters brought about by colonialism. During those times, the enslaved indigenous and African peoples used birth control plants, such as the Ayoowiri, not only as contraceptive methods but also as acts of resistance and self-determination in the face of brutal oppression during the European occupation of the Americas. The GIF essay performs a specific combination of images that vanish forever each time the user moves the mouse on the browsers’ window, centering these GIF stories on the practices of care that have often been suppressed or erased.
This web-based digital performance or "GIF essay" is based on presenting a number of Brazilian folk herbal contraceptives expressing "radical decolonizing care", aiming to resist the disasters brought about by colonialism. During those times, the enslaved indigenous and African peoples used birth control plants, such as the Ayoowiri, not only as contraceptive methods but also as acts of resistance and self-determination in the face of brutal oppression during the European occupation of the Americas. The GIF essay performs a specific combination of images that vanish forever each time the user moves the mouse on the browsers’ window, centering these GIF stories on the practices of care that have often been suppressed or erased.