LAST PARTY
LEONARDO RAMADINHA
ON VIEW: DECEMBER 13, 2021 – FEBRUARY 14, 2022
LEONARDO RAMADINHA
ON VIEW: DECEMBER 13, 2021 – FEBRUARY 13, 2022
LEONARDO RAMADINHA
ON VIEW: DECEMBER 13, 2021 – FEBRUARY 13, 2022
Below is an interview with Leo Ramadinha conducted in August of 2021.
INTERVIEW WITH LEONARDO RAMADINHA
BY MAX FIELDS
Max Fields (MF): I’d like to ask about how you first discovered these online parties? How did you first get involved?
Leonardo Ramadinha (LR): It was at the beginning of the Covid pandemic in Brazil. At the end of April. I found out by chance. I saw a post from a friend who was invited to a "Zoom party.” I clicked the link out of curiosity and was delighted with what I experienced there and spent the whole night watching people have fun.
MF: Did you think of your attendance at these parties as a part of your research practice?
LR: I didn’t anticipate that these parties would become research for a project. In fact, at first, I joined the parties to distract myself. It was at the second or third party that I realized how important it was for people not to go crazy during the most difficult period of the pandemic. Having fun was resisting. It was at this point that I understood that I wanted to document this. I needed to photograph these people struggling with perhaps the worst fear of their lives.
MF: Can you explain the title, “Last Party?”
LR: The news in Brazil was terrible... a president who, despite hundreds of deaths a day, denied the pandemic, terrible hospitals, even lack of oxygen. The main feeling was insecurity and fear. We were very scared. Despite this scenario, I saw that people who attended the parties had an attitude of "I don't know what can happen tomorrow so I need to have as much fun as I possibly can because this could be my last party." In Brazil, there is an expression that says: "to have a party as if there was no tomorrow." I saw this a lot.
MF: How were these parties organized and advertised? Who attends these events? How do the DJs get involved?
LR: The first party, which gave rise to the others, started with a group of Brazilians who are party producers and DJs living in NY. It was supposed to be a small zoom meeting to meet and listen to electronic music. What happened was so magical that some participants invited other people and so it grew.
Only after some time did the parties become official. Every Friday and Saturday there was a party. There was a network of collaborators who made the project happen: designers, VJs, DJs, producers, etc. The DJs were invited by friends to participate. All of the parties were free. After a few months, there was a QR code available that linked to a donation page set up for Brazilians living in the US during the pandemic. Invitations were advertised on Instagram and WhatsApp.
MF: What were these parties like? Can you take us through a typical night of a party?
LR: There was a DJ who played the music and it was shared by everyone watching on Zoom. People prepared and produced their own party environments at home: Some set up sets and backgrounds, lights, neons . . . During the night the party would heat up and people at home (almost always alone or in couples) would perform for the webcams. The house is a safe place!!
I noticed that everything that exists in a [in-person/AFK] party existed there. Loud music, drinking, people dancing, sex, drugs, flirting. When the night was the best, Friday's party ended on Sunday.
MF: Did you ever speak with those who were in attendance? If so, what were those conversations like? Did you form any bonds with the attendees?
LR: Yes, I met some people. I met an ex-student at a party! Today one of the main DJs of the project is a friend. I know some people who were and are still very active at Zoom parties.
MF: What was your process for documenting these parties? Were you simply collecting screenshots or were you recording the parties in video as well?
LR: I've always worked with screenshots. The frozen frame and the snapshot always attracted me more than the video. I never recorded on video.
MF: How did you narrow down the images to compose this series of images? Are there images that standout to you more than others?
LR: Editing this material has been a complicated and very pleasurable task. There are thousands of photographs compiled in folders that can provoke very different readings of the images. With this selection, I tried to make a broader panorama of my feelings about the parties. There are some images that stand out more to me. Those images where people are freer, more in the spirit of the party! There are also some choices that are subjective. I love photography with affection.
MF: I am curious to ask about the function these parties serve in relation to life during the pandemic. Do you think that these parties offered an outlet akin to clubbing in person, and do you think these parties have a place in a world where people are dancing together in person?
LR: These parties were the salvation of many people. It was a moment of resistance. A moment to believe that everything could get better. Links were created. For me, during the pandemic, nothing was the same. These parties were new and unique. They weren't old parties translated to Zoom.
A WhatsApp group was created and people helped each other in a bad time. Last month there were some parties in person and they were really fun. Some people met in person for the first time. I don't know if these Zoom parties will take place for a long time to come, but the people who attended the Zoom parties really danced together. They were together in heart but each in their own home.
Leonardo Ramadinha (b. Carioca, 1977, lives and works in Rio de Janeiro) holds an undergraduate degree in social communication from Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, a degree in visual arts at Universidade Estácio de Sá, and a postgraduate degree in photography and social sciences from Universidade Candido Mendes.
Ramadinha has participated in group and individual exhibitions in Brazil, Argentina, USA, Colombia, Germany, and Slovenia. In 2000 he was one of the artists awarded the Rio Jovem Artista Award. In 2003, Recoleta Cultural Center in Buenos Aires awarded Ramadinha an opportunity to show his work in the Encuentros Abiertos, a festival affiliated with the Festival da Luz. In 2007 he was selected by the Wooloo Independent Curator Program for the Urban Space project which included sharing his work at exhibitions at the New Life Shop Gallery in Berlin, at OI Futuro, Rio de Janeiro, and at FotoPub International Photo Festival in Slovenia. In October 2013, Ramadinha participated in the collective of Brazilian artists “Brazil am Main” at Galerie Söffing, in Frankfurt, Germany, held during the Frankfurt Book Fair, which featured Brazil as its honored country. He is one of the editors of the electronic visual arts magazine Verbete.art.
In 2015 Ramadinha founded and became the Director of Espaço Foto Contemporânea, a space dedicated to courses and workshops focusing on photography, contemporary art, and images. He has taught courses in photography, photographic language, and coordinated creation and development projects in contemporary photography for institutions such as POP – Contemporary Thought Pole, Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo – MAM SP, Itaú Bba, among others.
He has four books: About Memories and Dreams (2015), About the Delicacy of Things (2015), Angra dos Reis (2014) and Aquilo que Habita em Mim (2012). He is also featured in collective publications such as Rio Mar Lisboa Rio (2015) released by Barléu and The Creation of the World – Contemporary Brazilian Photography (2010), produced and curated by Eder Chiodetto.
Ramadinha’s works are held in private collections around the globe, including the Joaquim Paiva Collection (MAM-RJ), Beto Silva Collection, Julia and Luiz Porchat Collection, Milton Abirached Collection, and the Márcia and Eduardo Lopes Pontes Collection among many others.
His work can be found online at www.ramadinha.com.br.
LAST PARTY:
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