aguçando alegria

'aguçando alegria' rests under the ethos of joy as resistance, and acts as a disowning of the anguish of marginalisation and a reclaiming of the space for stories, languages, and ways of knowing that have been historically excluded

Samba is exhilarating.
Samba, the most popular Brazilian rhythm, is known to directly descend from batuque — percussion rhythms and circle dances performed by African people forcibly taken to Brazil by Portuguese colonisers to work in colonial plantations. It is widely believed that in early seventeenth century, enslaved Africans began to perform samba as rhythmic dances to disguise their religious rituals — samba is the prayer done through the body, by the body. To this day, samba continues to be used as a (joyful) form of resistance to marginalisation.

The project at large takes the form of an installation featuring photographic imagery as suspended textile pieces with hand embroidery, and two accompanying short films. The installation — titled A pangeia do não-permanecer onde o despregar de Odús do céu e o extrapolar de sonhos acontecem na alvorada (A pangaea of ​​non-permanence where the release of fates from the sky and the transcending of reveries that happen at first light) — rests under the ethos of joy as resistance, and acts as a disowning of the anguish of marginalisation and a reclaiming of the space for stories, languages, and ways of knowing that have been historically excluded. In this work, freeing myself from any censorship, I invoke my Afro-Brazilian ancestry and spirituality, while resisting marginalisation and cultural alienation as a consequence of my migration from Brazil to Australia. I also invite the community at large to allow the bodily gestures from the textile works to touch them: to be touched by (and to dance with) otherness and marginalised positions.

I chose textiles for their deceptive simplicity that is charged with a potential for subversion. Additionally, embroidery and textile works have historically been segregated in social and artistic canons to notions of femininity, inculcating female subservience; perceived as craft. Fabric also has specific connotations of care, curative and solace, while also serving to conceal what cannot be freely expressed. The choice of diaphanous fabrics is twofold: it reveals repressed voices and stories while concealing sacred aspects of my ancestry. The hand embroidery acts as a mapping of my ancestors’ migratory movements that become interwoven with my own. I also consider and engage with the challenges of understanding the idiosyncrasies of language in diasporic experiences and movement, considering that much of non-Western history is passed down orally, but is often dismissed by a favouring of Eurocentric and written records.

There are also two short films installed outside the suspended works. I chose this medium alongside photography to challenge their sociohistorical, sociocultural and colonial legacies, and to challenge their relationships to collective notions of truth, creating tension when placed together with ‘feminine’ textiles. Therefore, reclaiming space for stories excluded from historical accounts while attempting to transcend the European dichotomy between art and craft.

The photographic images printed as dye sublimation on organza and short films were made in both my hometown in Brazil and Australia, and become a record of the ecstasy in discovering that instead of being trapped in an in-betweenness, I can instead find joy in being in two places at once. The films are purposely silent, as silence compels the audience to become more present with the imagery unfolding in front of them. The film O arrebatamento do anfiguri na central quase aberta (The rapture of the anfiguri in the near-open central) imagines joy as pleasure: an orgasm as it is happening inside the body before the moment of climax. While the film A origem de desenhos de íris nas coxas de pirilampos (The origin of drawings of irises on fireflies’ thighs) evokes joy as an ecstasy of being in and with the world, dancing; joy happening through and outside the body.

Samba can rupture any fixed categories and concepts that give the impression that ancestry or spirituality is static, while they are in truth alive and in movement, just like diasporic bodies themselves, for these bodies continue to carry tongues, stories, knowledge, and ancestry as they move. Samba also allows for the development of a form of knowledge that adapts to migratory movements in the world and understands transformation not as an obstacle to be circumvented and avoided, but as a principle that governs reality.

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To view videos that are part of the installation:
O arrebatamento do anfiguri na central quase aberta (The rapture of the anfiguri in the near-open central): https://vimeo.com/1095902346

A origem de desenhos de íris nas coxas de pirilampos (The origin of drawings of irises on fireflies’ thighs): https://vimeo.com/1086946936