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The SESC Arts Showcase invited Nicolela in 2012 to curate and produce the IMAGEM-CONTATO: mostra de imagem em movimento (IMAGE-CONTACT: a moving images showcase), with the purpose to approach the materiality and the handcraft in the art of moving images. The concept of materiality was amplified to beyond the material – materiality in cinema and video as a knot of tension and contact. Tension between the experience of perceiving the projected image and its bidimensionality, and seeing through it as if we are looking at a hypothetical reality. The elected artworks distance themselves from the aesthetic of mimesis and representation, towards an opaque, transformed, manipulated, constructed image, with open structures and explicit processes; the image that asserts its presence and invites the spectator to a tactile, physical, sensorial relationship; to the contact. 

IMAGE-CONTACT brings to several SESC venues located in the city of São Paulo over 200 art films and videos from various parts of Brazil and the world, since classical pieces – such as ʻTangoʼ [1980] by Zbigniew Rybczynski and ʻNeighboursʼ [1952] by Norman McLaren, both recipients of the Oscar for Best Short Film andʻDimensions of Dialogueʼ [1983] by Jan Švankmajer, winner of the Golden Bear – to very recent works by celebrated and emerging contemporary artists. The program includes mini-retrospectives by the pioneers artists Nam June Paik, Norman McLaren, Zbigniew Rybczynski, Gunvor Nelson, Stan Brakhage and Jan Švankmajer; a selection of works by other prominent artists Bill Viola, Gary Hill, Pipilotti Rist and Hans Op de Beeck; and programs that search to map contemporary tendencies within the proposed theme. The Reynold Reynoldsʼ trilogy and two animations by Jochen Kuhn are some of the highlights; as well as pieces by the Asian artists Cao Fei, Jamsen Law, Eunjung Hwang and Junebum Park, never seen before in Brazil. 

The curating tried to take into account the diversity of the artistsʼ approaches in relation to the strategies of creation, techniques, materials and media, embracing the multiple and hybrid character of the moving images art. The exhibition also assumes this characteristic in the varied way it presents the works, exploring the plurality of the audience experience. Thus there will be programmed projections in 35mm and 16mm as well as in video in the SESC venues, while an itinerary container presenting looped programs will be placed in 3 different locations in public spaces of the city. In addition, the SESCTV will broadcast 15 videos a day during the eventʼs 11 days. IMAGE-CONTACT aims to raise a reflection about the moving image, whilst promoting a closer relationship between the audience and this art still unknown by the general public.