Marianne Soisalo's ALTO Art Residency Emerges from Kubrick Film Rental in Brazil's Chapada dos Veadeiros

Marianne Soisalo, a Brazilian of Finnish descent, established the radical ALTO art residency in Alto Paraíso de Goiás, 230 km from Brasília, using funds from renting her London cabaret Madame Jojo to Stanley Kubrick for his 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut. The land was purchased in 2008, with construction beginning in 2011, and now features treehouses built by a German specialist, one at 30 meters high, forming the Mariri Jungle Lodge. Co-directed since last year by artist Rodrigo Garcia Dutra, the residency hosts artists engaged with land and sustainability, like English writer Olivia Sprinkel, through application or invitation. Dutra, a Royal College of Art graduate, moved to Alto Paraíso in 2017 after involvement with the Huni Kuin indigenous people. The residency operates amidst regional conflicts with agribusiness, including a suspected farmer-set fire in October 2017 that destroyed 35,000 hectares in Veadeiros National Park. Past invited artists include Manoela Medeiros, who reinterpreted Lygia Clark's 1964 work Caminhando using banana tree leaves, and Romain Dumesnil, Marcia Ribeiro, Julie Beaufils, Daniela Fortes, Bia Monteiro, with Ivan Grilo scheduled for 2019.