VJ Suave is a Brazil-based new media art duo and studio formed by Ceci Soloaga (Argentina) and Ygor Marotta (Brazil), who have been creating together since 2009.
They combine frame-by-frame animation, moving projection, and urban intervention to create experiences that transform public space into luminous poetry.
Specialists in moving projection and immersive installations, VJ Suave creates hand-drawn animations that blend technology, storytelling, and street art into a single poetic language. Each piece is carefully adapted to the architecture of the city, transforming façades, trees, and buildings into living canvases where animated stories unfold. Through their work, VJ Suave invites the public to experience a unique connection between art, city, and movement.
Suaveciclo:
At the heart of their work is the Suaveciclo: the audiovisual performance on wheels.
Riding a custom tricycle equipped with a projector and sound system, the artists bring character animations to walls, trees, and streets, transforming the urban landscape into a playground of light and storytelling. Each projection is improvised, shaped by the rhythm of the ride and the reactions of the people around.
Suaveciclo is a ritual of encounter, a poetic parade, and a moving cinema, reclaiming public space and reimagining the city as a living canvas for creation and collective connection.
Immersive Installations & Projection Mapping:
Through immersive works such as Birds of Northeast Brazil (2024), Enchanted Forest (2017), and the projection mapping piece Tupinambá (2020), VJ Suave explores the intersections of ancestry, spirituality, and ecology.
While Birds of Northeast Brazil celebrates the biodiversity and winged memory of northeastern Brazil, and Enchanted Forest invites participants into a virtual reality inhabited by mystical beings who embody the wisdom of the forest, Tupinambá takes a decolonial stance, confronting the violent legacy of Brazil’s colonization and revealing how it endures today — through social inequality, police repression, land repossessions, and public policies that perpetuate systemic injustice. The piece acts as a visual and spiritual uprising, restoring Indigenous presence and memory as living forces of resistance and renewal.
These creations emerge from the convergence of artistic vision, research, technology, and collaboration, as VJ Suave builds a team of animators such as Dante Zaballa, Paulo Stoker, Juli Soloaga, and Kosha, and works in dialogue with musicians including bmind, Psilosamples, and Numa Gama, as well as Indigenous leader Glicéria Tupinambá.
Shortmovies:
The short films of VJ Suave trace the origins of a unique visual language: one where animation leaves the screen and finds life in the streets through light and motion.
They created 4 short films: Trip (2013), La cena (2012), Homeless (2011) and Run (2011).
Through the Tagtool app, VJ Suave turns live painting and animation into a shared creative act where drawing becomes performance.
The installation is participatory and collaborative, inviting audiences of all ages to take part in real-time creation. Whether projected across façades in public space or within immersive environments at galleries and festivals, each session becomes a collective experiment — a luminous dialogue between art, people, and place.
Over the years, the duo has taught this technique in schools, festivals, and communities across Brazil and around the world, inviting participants of all ages to draw, animate, and bring their imagination to life in real time. Each workshop transforms collective creativity into a luminous shared experience.
They also share their process in an online Domestika class, where anyone can learn to use Tagtool to create real-time drawings and animations, turning any wall into a living canvas.
The urban intervention “Mais amor por favor” (More love please) was created by Ygor Marotta in 2009, transforming São Paulo’s walls into open messages of kindness and resistance. What began as a plea for empathy in a city of social contrasts became a movement of collective expression, and the starting point for the language that would later evolve into VJ Suave, spreading love trought light across Brazil and the world. Through Bons Pensamentos, the artist sells original posters worldwide.
Selected presentations:
2025 Hacktown, Santa Rita do Sapucaí, Brasil.
2025 Cura Festival, Belo Horizonte, Brasil.
2025 Sesc Rio, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.
2025 Convivium Festival, Bombay Beach, California, USA.
2025 Waterfall projection, Heliodora, Brasil.
2024 Taitung Light Festival, Taiwan.
2024 Festival de Inverno Sesc Rio, Petrópolis, Brasil.
2024 Blink Cincinnati Festival, USA.
2024 Turnê pela China com Mola Oddity (9 cidades)
2023 Mapp Festival, Laval, Canada.
2023 Festival Amazonia Mapping.
2022 MAPP Festival, Montreal, Canada.
2022 Festival Meca Inhotim/MG, Brasil.
2022 MAC, Niterói/RJ, Brasil.
2022 Mural Festival, Montreal, Canada.
2022 Museu Nacional da República, Brasilia, Brasil.
2020 Tagtool online session @ Ars Eletronica, Vienna, Austria.
2020 Tagtool online session @ São Paulo, Brasil.
2020 Forum Advantage Numérique, Noranda, Canada.
2019 Marte Festival, Ouro Preto, Brasil.
2019 Instituto de Turismo, Bogotá, Colombia.
2019 Biela Noc Festival, Kosice / Bratislava, Slovakia.
2019 Voodoohop na Cachoeira, Heliodora, Brasil.
2019 Kuwait Light Festival, Kuwait.
2019 Lantern Festival, Taiwan.
2018 Estação da Luz, São Paulo, Brasil.
2018 LUMA Projection Arts Festival, New York, USA.
2018 Shenzhen, China.
2018 Spring of Culture, Bahrain.
2018 MAPP Festival, Montreal, Canada.
2018 Lantern Festival, Hsinchu Good New Year, Taiwan
2018 Roda de Força, SSA Mapping, Salvador, Brasil.
2018 Festival de Luzes de São Pualo, Brasil.
2017 Taoyuan Art X Technology Festival, Taiwan.
2017 Festival Instagrafite, São Paulo, Brasil.
2017 Nuit Blanche, Porto, Portugal.
2017 UIT Festival, Tartu, Estonia.
2017 Monstra Animation Festival, Lisbon, Portugal.
2017 Developers conference Google, Palo Alto, USA
2016 Jackson Hole, WY, USA.
2016 MAPP Festival, Montreal, Canada.
2016 The Paseo Festival, Taos, New Mexico, USA.
2016 Out There Festival (Great Yarmouth), Freedom Festival (Hull), UK.
2016 Street Musicians Festival, Belgrade, Servia.
2016 Singapore National Museum
2016 Boulevard Olimpico, Olimpiadas Rio
2016 Art Residency Walk and Talk, Ponta Delgada, Açores, Portugal.
2016 Maine film festival, USA.
2016 Strasbourg 1st Veloparade, Strasbourg.
2016 Moscow Polytech Science Festival, Russia.
2016 True and False Festival, Columbia, Missouri.
2016 Cavalgata de Reyes Magos, Madri, Espanha
2015 Gaf Art Fair, Guangzhou, China.
2015 Festival Concreto, Fortaleza.
2015 Parque Ibirapuera, São Paulo, Brasil.
2015 FestAnca International Animation Festival, Slovakia.
2015 Festival Rotondes, Luxemburgo.
2015 Galeria de Arte Digital Avenida Paulista, São Paulo, Brasil.
2014 Virada Cultural e Virada Paulista, São Paulo, Brasil.
2014 Circuito Sesc de Artes, São Paulo, Brasil.
2013 Blue Balls Festival. Museum of Art Lucerne, Switzerland.
2013 Vologda, Russia.
2013 Animación en colectivo. Museu Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain.
2013 International Film Festival ‘Message to Man’ , Saint Petersburg, Russia.
2013 Shiny Toys Festival, Mulheim an der Rurh, Germany.
2013 Neurotitan Gallery, Berlin, Germany.
2013 Museu da Imagem e Som de São Paulo, Brasil.
2013 Criolo e VJ Suave no Festival Encantado. Rio de Janeiro
2013 Voodoohop na Virada Cultural. São Paulo.
2012 Fest Anca, International Animation Festival. Eslováquia.
2012 Live Cinema, Oi Futuro. Rio de Janeiro
2012 Broadcast Techne, NHK, Japan public network.
2012 FILE – Festival Internacional da Linguagem Eletronica. São Paulo, Brasil
2012 Virada Sustentável, Sesc Pompéia. São Paulo (First Suaveciclo Performance)
2011 Mapping Festival. Genebra, Switzerland.
2011 TMDG, Encontro Internacional de Design Grafico. Mar del Plata, Argentina.
2011 Canvas, Encontro audiovisual. São Paulo.
Studies and academic articles about VJ Suave:
“A Experiência Estética Mediada Pela Luz no Espaço Urbano e Subjetivo na Obra de VJ Suave” (Beatriz de Oliveira Lima, Rosana Pimenta)
A Luz em Cena: Revista de Pedagogias e Poéticas Cenográficas. 4, 07 (08/2024)
Portuguese, Spanish, English
“Spatial Video Projection as a Digital DIY Paradigm for Under-valued Public Open Spaces Revitalization” (Lima Najjar & Fatma Ayçim Turer Baskaya)
Istanbul Technical University, 2023
“As caminhadas audiovisuais do duo VJ Suave” (Gabriela Capper)
Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), Revista Abarca, 2025
Portuguese, Spanish, English
“Pinturas de luz itinerante: Uma abordagem a partir da poética híbrida do VJ Suave” (Daniela Corrêa da Silva Pinheiro)
Associação de Investigadores da Imagem em Movimento, Portugal. 2022
Case-studies Institute for Public Art (Gabriela Ribeiro) 2020
Press & Media Features:
Internacional:
Colossal, “Audiovisual tricycles by VJ Suave” 2015
Colossal, “Nature-Based Animations Projected on São Miguel Island by VJ Suave” 2016
Vice Montreal, “VJ Suave in Montreal” 2016
Hi 设计, “他们骑着单车，把爱投影到城市的每一个角落” 2015
Hi-Fructose, “VJ Suave Project Interactive Public Art from Their Tricycles” 2015
Audiovisual city – Interview to VJ Suave 2020
VJ Suave featured at Apple Keynote 2014
Wired Magazine, “Exclusive: Animators Drop Stop-Motion Creatures Into Jungle Scenes” 2012
Create Digital Motion, “Homeless: Animating São Paulo’s Darker Corners with a Handmade Love Story” 2012
Japan’s national public broadcasting network, “Techne NHK” 2012
Woostercollective, “Urban projections from vjsuave in São Paulo” 2011
Brasil:
Madrugada Desperada “Um subversivo suave” 2016
TV Cultura, “Materias no minhocão” 2014
O Globo “Um suave encontro visual com a natureza” 2014
Catraca Livre, “Um bate papo com os criadores do movimento mais amor por favor” 2015
