Director Of Photography For Brazil’s National Institute Of Fine Arts Visits Campus

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - The Latin American Studies Program (LAST) at the University of Arkansas is pleased to launch a new cultural and academic program for the Fayetteville campus: The LAST (Latin American Studies) Lecture Series. Angela Magalhães, Director of Photography for Brazil’s National Institute of Fine Arts (FUNARTE), will give the inaugural lecture in the series, a slide presentation on Contemporary Brazilian Photography, in Old Main’s Giffels Auditorium, starting at 7:00 pm on Tuesday, September 26. Her lecture is open to the general public. Admission is free and a reception will follow her presentation.

Ms. Magalhães’s slide presentation will lead the audience on a voyage across Brazil, from isolated communities along Amazon shores, to the hillside slums of Rio de Janeiro, to the homes of Polish immigrants in the south of the country. In her remarks, Ms. Magalhães will give a comprehensive overview of the latest trends in art and journalistic photography in Brazil, touching upon such themes as the impact of digital imagery, the documentary tradition in Brazil, and the artistic combination of photography with other media. With the support of a powerful visual display, the lecture will provide both a survey of the best in current Brazilian photography, and an introduction to the surprising range of contemporary Brazilian experience and realities.

Angela Magalhães, in addition to her work as Director of Photography at FUNARTE, has written two books on the history of photography in Brazil, and has organized and coordinated dozens of photographic exhibitions around the world.

The new Latin American Studies (LAST) Lecture Series is designed to become a regular and permanent feature of cultural and academic life at the U of A’s Fayetteville campus. Over the course of the next two academic years, 2000-2001 and 2001-2002, a total of eight speakers of regional, national, and international significance will be brought to campus to address Latin American and Inter-American topics and issues of broad and vital interest.

Funding to seed the new Lecture Series during these first two years comes entirely from a $130,000 Grant awarded to the University’s Latin American Studies Program by the U.S. Department of Education, under the Title VI Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language Program. The grant proposal was co-authored by Professors James F. Horton and Steven M. Bell, former and current Directors, respectively, of the Latin American Studies program on campus. The University’s Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences and the Walton College of Business Administration have both pledged funding to sustain the new Lecture Series beyond the initial, two-year start-up period.

Professor Steven M. Bell, new Director of Latin American Studies, notes: "We are most grateful for the support our efforts to expand the Program in Latin American Studies at the University of Arkansas have received, both from Fulbright College and the University at large, and from the U.S. Department of Education. This support comes at a propitious moment, when the continuing flow of Hispanic and Latin American immigrants into our area makes acknowledgment of the increasing significance in our daily lives of Inter-American cultural, political, and economic relations both imperative and inevitable."

"The new Latin American Studies Lecture Series will help increase the visibility of our program on campus and in the region, and give invaluable support to our academic programs. We also hope the Lecture Series will provide outreach and further ties between the University and the surrounding community. In this vein, we are most pleased to have Ms. Magalhães as our inaugural lecturer. Her presence on campus calls attention to the new Portuguese-language and Brazilian components we are adding to our Latin American Studies curriculum. More importantly, the visually stunning photographs she will present should hold broad appeal for students of culture and aficionados of the Arts across the community."

For his part, Assistant Professor of History and Latin American Studies Bryan McCann, a Brazilian Specialist, notes: "Director Magalhães brings with her examples of the best art and journalistic photography produced in Brazil today, including many images never before shown in this country. Her pictures are guaranteed to shock and amaze."

In addition to Angela Magalhães’s main lecture on the evening of September 26, she will host an informal Coffee & Conversation Hour, also open to the public, entitled "Photography in a Changing Brazil," on Monday, September 25, at 3:30 pm, in Old Main room 420.

Other associated events include a Student Photo Exhibit by Maria Ioup. Her exhibit offers images from the U of A Study Abroad program this summer in Mexico. These photos will be on display in the halls of Old Main in front of Giffels Auditorium on September 26, before Ms. Magalhães main lecture presentation, and during the reception that follows. Ms. Ioup’s Photo Exhibit is underwritten by Collier Drugstores.

• Event: Lecture & Slide Presentation of Contemporary Brazilian Photography
• Speaker: Angela Magalhães, Director of Photography, Brazilian Ministry of Arts
• When: Tuesday, September 26, 7:00 p.m.
• Where: Giffels Auditorium, Old Main, University of Arkansas