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ENGLISH VERSION IMAGE AND POWER

century, are still present in the 21st. And, given this and instigates us to perceive these other existential The expographic project is consonant with the
Brazilian sociocultural structure, we have not yet plots of the writer. Let us remember Carolina from conceptual paths proposed and instigated by the
built concrete strategies to eradicate this malaise her words: “Don’t say I’ve been rubbish, don’t say works. In it, the images rise, in a kind of ideological
of our social fabric. that I’ve lived on the margins of life.” suspension, reaffirming that they are neither affixed
Carolina’s work is also a cultural heritage of our to the earth nor raised to the heavens, but inhabit
time, among as many possible heritages. I am not REFERENCES this phantasmagorical field of images, in an eternal
thinking here heritage only as a category of State “between”: the notions of material and immaterial,
in the formation of national identities, but rather a AKOTIRENE, Carla. O que é interseccionalidade? Belo reality and fiction, materiality and abstractionism
patrimony from a perspective of love, as an action Horizonte – MG: Letramento: Justificando,2018. are challenged, denying conventional dualisms, and
that allows us to advance in a constant struggle running through them like a dart at the exact moment
for freedom. For, as the poet Maya Angelou said: ANGELOU, Maya. Mamãe & eu & mamãe. Translation Ana it rips the veil – the photographic click. The exhibition
“I use the word love, not meaning sentimentality, Carolina Mesquita. 1 st ed. space is designed so that the viewer sees one image at
but a condition so strong that it may be that which Rio de Janeiro: Rosa dos tempos. 2018. a time, gradually building a maze of wooden planes in
holds the stars in their heavenly positions and that which the photographs are fixed, which resembles the
which causes the blood to flow orderly in our veins.” ANZALDÚA, Gloria. Falando em línguas: uma carta para labyrinthine perception of the forest. As we enter the
(ANGELOU, 2018). Carolina’s writings restore the as mulheres escritoras do terceiro mundo [electronic exhibition, we glimpse the photographer’s feeling as
bodies considered “dispossessed” of humanity, version]. In: Revista de Estudos Feministas (pp.229-236). he opens himself to the chance of life, to the surprise
that is, dispossessed of memories, subjectivities, 2000. Available at: https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/ of encounters, open to the possibility of being swept
individualities and their complexities of being and ref/article/view/9880/9106; away by an image at the next curve.
existing in the world. The parallelism to Pierre Verger’s exhibition,
EGA, Françoise. Cartas a uma negra. Translation Vinícius simultaneous and adjacent to Luiz Braga’s
ii. the letters of Carolina Carneiro and Mathilde Moaty. São Paulo: Todavia, 1 st exhibition, at Instituto Tomie Ohtake, in São Paulo,
The letters of Carolina Maria de Jesus are like edition. 2021 is assertively traced by the curatorial texts of Paulo
waters that do not ask permission - Carolina enters, Miyada and Priscyla Gomes that narrate the story
bursts, floods, washes and takes. The waters are in MORRISON, Toni. A origem dos outros: Seis ensaios sobre of two travelers. Braga, the stubborn and curious
no hurry, they take their course in due time, telling racismo e literatura. Translation Fernanda Abreu; preface one who seeks to travel within himself, his land,
us that they are the ladies of various times in the Ta-Nehisi Coates. and his culture; and Verger, the ambitious world
interstices between past and future, flowing into the 1 st ed. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras adventurer worthy of a Jules Verne’s novel. The
present. Carolina’s prose and poetry, following the literary analogies could follow: the circumnavigator
route and course of the waters, offer us a constant 1 Song “Letras Negras” by Larissa Luz, which is one of the Phileas Fogg, protagonist of Verne’s Around the
reconstruction of her own existence, in a continuous tracks from her album Território Conquistado, 2016. World in Eighty Days, is accompanied by his
flow from the self to us. servant, called Passepartout. An element dear to
The lyrics of Carolina Maria de Jesus also send us to exhibitions sÃo paulo [paGEs 56 to 60] photography, the passepartout, homonymous to
the thinking of the intellectual Carla Akotirene when the character, is something that is not inherent to
she states: “[...] the enslaved language was gagged, IDEA, REFLECTION, AND the work, but it is also not outside of it in certain
politically, prevented from playing its language, contexts (such as exhibitions): once again, it inhabits
drinking from its own cross-minded epistemic IMAGE IN LUIZ BRAGA this mysterious “between”.
source.” (AKOTIRENE, 2018, p.16). In this sense, Entitled Máscara, espelho e escudo, the exhibition
Carolina’s literary work releases our tongues and Curated by Paulo Miyada and Priscyla is named after three highly symbolic signs that are
contributes to the dismantling of oppressive images Gomes, the exhibition at Instituto Tomie analogous to the artist’s photographic process, as
and memories of control of black existences. From Ohtake brings together for the first time a set he wrote himself. There is, however, a strong hybrid
her writings, she becomes reflective subject and of color portraits made by Luiz Braga in the charge coming from the transcultural matrix of Pará
intends the field of language, in the power games last four decades that can also be related to these three symbols.
of literature. Carolina owns her speech, owner of The masks, dear to indigenous rituals, were also
her existence. By matEus nunEs hybridized – when receiving European traditions
The letters of Carolina Maria de Jesus are brought by Catholic missionaries – by the natives
within her own writing standard, as it is a created with a laborious proCess, Luiz Braga, born in colonized in the Amazon, who painted the admirable
orthography “[...] inside, in the innards and in living Belém do Pará, manages to create an atmosphere, masks on the ceilings of the churches in which they
tissues — I call this organic writing. [...]”. (ANZALDÚA, the stage for an imagery novel. The narratives later became devotees. In these artistic expressions,
2000, p.234). Carolina’s work unframes the words, that intertwine the backstage of his photographs, one can see several marks of the indigenous tradition
making them living organisms, with which she reveals with the constant contact that the artist has had made by native hands, painted with natural pigments
the bitterness of being a black woman, poor, living with his subjects over the years, fill this dense and inks coming from the metropolis. This strength
in the slum of Canindé, solo mother, performing a space of indocile matter between the subject, was not something that could be tamed by priests.
work of social discredit. However, it is with her the photographer, and the observer of the work. Likewise, an instrument of enchantment, the mirror
own writing that she tells us: her existence was not Umberto Eco has shared that the hardest thing accompanies the usual narratives of seduction by
reduced to this marginalized condition, she did not to do, when in the process of writing a novel, is the Europeans in the invasion of Brazil, using it as
limit her dreaming, nor her thought of herself and precisely to create an atmosphere. Think about the a colonial weapon camouflaged as a gift. In the
the world around her. It is with her own writing number of steps on the stilt stairs, the colors of the universe created by Luiz Braga, this same narcissistic
standards that Carolina fables the possibilities of open letters on the boats, the curvature of the open fascination of those who look at themselves in the
reinvention of what surrounds her. hammocks, even if empty. With the atmosphere reflection of water or metal is present in country
The lyrics of Carolina Maria de Jesus crossed the created, everything is no longer controlled by the houses, in mirrors in front of which their residents
Atlantic Ocean and, on the other side, they flow author: the characters and the words – in Luiz Braga’s dress in the best clothes and meticulously comb their
out, building Afro-diasporic dialogues materialized case, the images – emerge on their own, at their own hair for festivities, events of joy that Braga chooses
in the book Lettre à une noire, by Françoise Ega, pace. After the costly labor of taming colors and to perpetuate.
Martinican writer based in France. Her words lights, the photographer is destined to open himself His shield, fragile and ambivalent, protects him
welcomed another author and allowed her to also up to chance, to dialogue. He actively waits and from nothing but himself, as it carries a target in its
become a reflective subject of herself as from the wanders and, with an eyedropper, over the course center, as if to say “shoot!”. In this way, the subject’s
dialogue with Carolina’s words. of four decades, he is graced with his characters, gaze hits him, subverting the shield as an instrument
which he encounters again and again in the port, of protection and transforming it into a chest open
Yes, Carolina, the miseries of the poor on the boat, on the street, in the river and at home. to life, to chance. Sometimes, the decisive moment
of the whole world look like sisters. “Waiting for Rosa”, à la Beckett: in Luiz Braga’s to take the image does not seem to belong to the
Everyone reads you out of curiosity, I work, persistence and patience go hand in hand. photographer, but to the subject. In that instant,
will never read you; everything you’ve In this series of color portraits brought together for everything clicks.
written, I know, and so much so that the first time, the photographer creates allegories of The exhibition reiterates the effervescent cultural
other people, however indifferent they daily life, where the viewers can identify themselves plurality of the Pará region, drawing attention
are, are impressed by your words. in the eyes of the subject, with figures far removed to the existing political inequalities and to the
(EGA, 2021, p.05) from their reality. In this way, he transforms those aesthetic stigmas that are wrongly attached to its
portrayed into an idea, into idyllic characters, such heterogeneous artistic production. When the masks
Carolina Maria de Jesus is a writer of our time. Her as the deities of Tapajonic sculpture or the biblical fall, when the mirrors collapse and when the shields
work, in addition to making us think about Brazilian engravings by Gustave Doré – tracing a hybrid split, it seems that an arrow crosses the plane of the
society with all its social inequalities, is an Afro- matrix path between native traditions and Western photograph and lacerates the subjects. This incision
Brazilian cultural heritage that must be constantly European culture. By magically illustrating everyday in the bodies of Luiz Braga’s images would challenge
revisited. From this point on, it is a primary task episodes, Braga elevates the image of his subjects his expected Dionysian viscerality and attest to his
to unframe our views on Carolina’s life, prose and to an immaterial level, as if they didn’t belong to the abrupt Apollonian fable: it would cut an open wound
poetry and, for this, the exhibition Carolina Maria real plane – almost like visages, ghostly beings of of color where flesh was expected, bursting light
de Jesus: um Brasil para os brasileiros proposes Pará’s culture. from where blood was expected.
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