Rethinking the South

The visual artist Lisa C Soto is based in Puerto Rico and Ghana. In her work, she uses imagery of actual and imagined cartography to address local and global interactions, tropical flora and cosmic connections. Her multimedia large-scale installations consist of earthbound and industrial materials as well as plants, instruments and games. Soto's works question hierarchies and binaries, reflect rhizomatic patterns in nature and challenge Western "rational" approaches to knowledge.

Selected exhibitions include Negro/A/X group exhibition at Corredor Afro gallery, 2020, Loiza, Puerto Rico; the Getty Foundation initiative PST LA/LA, Relational Undercurrents: Contemporary Art of the Caribbean Archipelago, traveling group exhibition from 2017 – 2019; “Convergence”, a 2018 collaboration with Adjaye Associates creating her first permanent installation in the public realm in Newark, NJ. Artist lectures include MIT, Ford Foundation, KNUST, Claremont Graduate University and Rutgers University. Soto is currently an MFA candidate at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).

"I am looking forward to experimenting with movement and flora within the space of natural environments such as the forests, and river beds in Bahia, during my stay at the Vila Sul residency. I intend to make use of the opportunity to explore a new medium in order to discuss the symbiotic and energetic exchange between bodies and plants in the context of Bahia’s histories. These histories will be triangulated between Bahia, my Caribbean cultures and my present home of Ghana."

With the VILA SUL, the Goethe-Institut Salvador-Bahia offers a place of residence for cultural workers from various disciplines for exchange and transregional networking on the overarching theme of the 'South'. With a standard period of two months, up to 16 scholarship holders are invited each year to work on their research and ideas on the 'South' on site. Due to its historical and cultural diversity, Salvador de Bahia is an ideal meeting place between the local cultural scene and international residents. The goals of the VILA SUL are a long-term and sustainable networking between the cultural scenes at home and abroad and thus the strengthening of intercultural dialogue, the initiation of changes in perspective, the crossing of borders and living in a different cultural context.

As the globally active cultural institute of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Goethe-Institut is committed to promoting understanding between Germany, Europe and the world.