Small Meteors

Two lives are intertwined in the space of this work: the experience of a stoning suffered in childhood for reasons related to gender and the experience of a body in transition in the face of a religious family and its own resignifications.

At the age of 10, Masina Pinheiro, nicknamed Hiroshima, because they was born on the same day as the bomb, was attacked with stones in Vila da Penha, a neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Their appearance was very ambiguous. In another place and time, Gal begins to understand the processes of their own body, their transition and their non-binary trans identity. All of this was often a cause for unrest in a deeply religious family. Gal was born on the same day as Harry S. Truman, the President of the United States who authorized the dropping of the bomb. We think this is a significant coincidence.

In the words written by Renée Mussai: “Their exceptional project is distinguished by a sophisticated visual style and strong conceptual treatment of a pertinent socio-political subject matter that usually relies heavily on the representation - and figurative presence - of the body. Autobiographical in nature, the series’ subtle yet striking imagery visualises childhood memories of homophobic gender-based violence and the experience of hate crime through the symbolic arrangements of objects, sculptural still life compositions and abstract black and white photography.

Drawing on a cinematic aesthetics and surrealist sensibilities, Pinheiro and Cipreste’s intriguing story telling foregrounds non-binary / gender - queer identities - members of Brazil’s LGTBQIA+ community - in this artful critique of normative structures and social injustices, composed with cleverly playful, yet serious, undertones...”

This series does not seek voyeurs, it wants to imagine free childhoods. It is not interested in the spectacle of pain. Its intention is to transform the idea of memory into care.