Macumba

On-Site returns for 2024, sharing the work of Brazilian-born RMIT PhD candidate Cecilia Sordi Campos.

Abstract artwork Image credit: Cecilia Sordi Campos, benedictus fructus ventris, 2023. Image courtesy of the artist.

Campos suffers from severe endometriosis, a condition that has caused her to be infertile. In an ongoing investigation of her own identity, she explores what it means to be a woman without the choice of giving birth. 

Macumba is a survey of Campos' works in writing and photography. In this exhibition Campos finds herself in a place of convergence-- a space between the grief and liberation for her old and new self. Traversing vibrant meditations and visual rituals, Macumba invites us to look between and beyond traditional notions of womanhood.

Curated by Lisa Linton

On-Site is an RMIT Culture produced exhibition at First Site Gallery. 

Artist Bio

Cecilia is a Brazilian-born, Australia-based photographic artist, writer and researcher.
Her practice is positioned in the field of socially engaged art, autofiction and expanded photography. Cecilia’s projects recognise ‘narratives of the self’ that sit outside traditions and limitations of colonial narratives as resources in the development of visual vocabularies to represent complex experiences of being-ness, womanhood and the female body, and migration and hybrid cultural identity.
Cecilia’s aim is the seeking of strategies in communicating complex experiences within public discourses; therefore, proposing a parting from traditional systems of power and privilege to rediscover inclusive ways of knowing and aesthetic expression.

Capturing stillness - Experimental Still Life Workshop with Cecilia Sordi Campos

Thursday 29 February 1:30 - 4pm

Thursday 7 March 1:30 - 4pm 

Free, bookings essential

Are you fascinated by the enduring symbolic power of still life painting?  On-Site artist Cecilia Sordi Campos works experimentally within the still life tradition, capturing the natural beauty of flowers and fruit to document her journey of infertility. Join Cecilia in a guided workshop exploring experimental image making with gouache painting and lumen printing.   Working from a live still life of flowers and fruit you will create a vibrant interpretation of the natural world - translating colour, light and texture to the page. Participants will be introduced to the fundamentals of still life painting, exploring techniques Cecilia works with in her own practice to create beautiful and arresting imagery layered with meaning. Participants with all levels of experience and ability are welcomed and encouraged.   

All materials provided. 

Incantations – Creative Writing Workshop with Cecilia Sordi Campos

Thursday 14 March 2:30 - 4pm

Free, bookings essential

How does language shape our experience of the world? What can be expressed when we don’t follow the traditional rules of writing?

On-Site artist Cecilia Sordi Campos creative writing is born from a poetic exploration of ‘non-language’ – a concept that is marked by loose words and no definite grammar. Informed by poets and writers Manoel de Barros, and Marguerite Duras, Cecilia weaves English and her Brazilian Portuguese mother-tongue to play with form. Cecilia disobeys grammar and technicality, shattering traditional signification, challenging social constructs of womanhood and the female body, as well as stereotypical views on the experience of migration and hybrid cultural identity.

Guided by Cecilia, participants will be encouraged to branch out from the traditional confines of grammar and technicality to create a piece of writing that centres self-expression and fluidity.

On pain, Panel Discussion

Thursday 21 March 2024 5:00 pm - 6:45 pm

Join On-Site artist Cecilia Sordi Campos, author and artist Madison Griffiths and On-Site Curator Lisa Linton for an eye-opening conversation about stigma and pain that explores the driving resilience behind the artist's creative practice. 

Free, bookings essential

Two of five women in Victoria suffer from chronic pain. In a recent state survey, half the participants reported that menstruation-related conditions, among them endometriosis, caused alarming levels of pain. On-Site artist Cecilia Sordi Campos suffers from endometriosis; she lives with the chronic pain of this condition but has learned to channel it into her creative practice. Like many women in Victoria, her pain has been questioned by and stigmatised in our public health system.   

Similarly, in her debut novel Tissue, author Madison Griffiths turns her keen eye to the topic of abortion. She takes a contemplative and personal look at this procedure, a procedure that is common yet vilified. Tissue looks at the feelings of guilt and shame around choice, exploring the language we use (or don't use) and considers how silence shapes the way we think and feel.   

Join us for a conversation that delves into stigma, shame and pain, but also creativity, resilience and choice. 

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RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.

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aboriginal flag
torres strait flag

Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business.

More information