Rene Will Bernardes

São Paulo – SP, 1991

Rene Will Bernardes is a non-binary trans person and professor of Arts at the Federal Institute of São Paulo – Registro Campus (SP). At that institution, she was president of the Diversity Committee from 2017 to 2019, and she also collaborates with the Nucleus of Gender and Sexuality Studies. She has a degree in Arts from the University of São Paulo and she specializes in Art Therapy in Schools.

Currently, the artist is pursuing an MA degree in Teaching and Ethnic-Racial Relations at the Federal University of the South of Bahia, where she engages in a research-action focused on the development of a decolonial art education against white cisnormativity through the means of performance. It’s also worth noting that her performative experiences began when she was only twelve years old.

Her urban interventions, such as the series “Poder viver” [“Able to live”], reclaim the free use of spaces in the city of São Paulo through certain positionings and simple performative actions on sidewalks and street crossings. Rene Willi’s practice focuses on the arts of the body and its interaction with drawing – almost always in everyday contexts, displacements, public and private spaces, social interactions, and parties. “To manage desires, leave the (dis)comfort zone, to experience unusual performances: performative (re)existences that aren’t subjugated to the white-cis-heteronormativity”, is how she describes her creations.

She participated in the artistic residency PósPornôPyrata, in Fortaleza (2019), with a focus on post-pornography and performances of people with dissident sexualities, as well as in the online residency Corpas (2020), for which she developed improvisational dances in water and nature.

Artworks:

“Poder viver  no Ibirapuera” [“Able to live in Ibirapuera”] (2013). Direction and Editing: Rene Will Bernardes. Duration: 06’ 40”. Available here.

“Poder viver na Vital Brasi” [“Able to live at Vital Brasil”] (2013). Direction and Editing: Rene Will Bernardes. Duration: 06’ 06”. Available here.

“Poder viver  na Paulista” [“Able to live at Paulista”] (2013). Direction and Editing: Rene Will Bernardes. Duration 04’ 46”. Available here.