Page 96 - ARTE!Brasileiros #59

ENGLISH VERSION REACTIVATING ATTENTION

windows and colors, created by designers from institutions that were supposed to safeguard it. the government – expressed in Bolsonaro’s phrase

the Formafantasma studio. “Everyone is failing in their responsibility, some that his government needed to “deconstruct a lot
scandalously, others by omission”, says the general of things” – remains valid.
national representations defender, Rita Cristina de Oliveira, one of those Fortunately, not everything depends on this
In this edition, which runs until November 27, responsible for the collective effort to recover the site rigid and negligent structure between the powers,
the artist who won the Golden Lion as the best and make the project to preserve and disseminate as exemplified and signaled by the Instituto de
participation in the international exhibition was the this memory viable. Several initiatives, such as Pesquisa e Memória Pretos Novos (ipN), which has
North American Simone Leigh, which opens and different lawsuits involving the public defender’s just reopened its permanent exhibition, tracing
closes The Milk of Dreams at Arsenale, in addition office and the Federal Public Ministry, have been the path of men and women brought as slaves to
to representing the usa in this biennial. taken, but few results have been obtained so far. Brazil, showing important vestiges of the various
The national representations, in fact, continue There are multiple faces to this neglect. excavations carried out at the site and opening space
to be a mess, where, contrary to an excellent level for a permanent dialogue with contemporary art,
in the international exhibition, they suffer from pedro 2 docks such as the current exhibition of Geleia da Rocinha.
an impressive discrepancy, from pavilions with Recently, the situation of the building known as Installed on top of the cemetery that received
excellent works to other quite embarrassing ones, Docas Pedro 2 , which underwent an inspection the bodies of the disembarked who could not resist
o
as happened this time with Jonathan de Andrade, last May, gained more visibility. Currently under the brutality of the trip and the mistreatment, the
for Brazil. By bringing popular Brazilian expressions the custody of Fundação Palmares and in a very Institute was born from a chance discovery, made
to the pavilion, illustrating some of them with precarious state, the construction needs effective in 1996, when the Guimarães dos Anjos family found
somewhat tacky sculptures, the ensemble seemed measures of protection and restoration. In addition bones under their house during a renovation. . Since
lost in translation, without taking into account the to being located in the internationally recognized then, the family has been developing an important
international context of the show. area, it houses (even if precariously) all the material work of research and dissemination.
What stands out: Poland, with an immense fabric collected in archaeological research in the region In addition to the exhibitions and various
installation by Malgorzata Mirga-Tas; Belgium, with and is the place that naturally should host the archaeological research works (neighboring areas
Francys Alÿs and her videos of children playing in reference center for the Celebration of African were acquired to expand the Institute’s reach), which
different parts of the Earth; France, with Zineb Sedira, Heritage and the work of the Open Laboratory should be resumed now in July, the Institute carries
in a fun film about his love for cinema; and England, of Urban Archeology (Laau), the building is still a out an important work of disseminating knowledge
which received the Golden Lion for best pavilion, fundamental landmark in the architectural history of and memory. As of 2016, it offers a free guided
with Sonia Boyce and a work based on the voices Rio de Janeiro. Designed by black engineer André tour of 13 different points of this circuit of African
of black female singers. The question now is how Rebouças, it is the first building in the country not heritage in this nucleus of Valongo, such as Largo
to maintain this representation in future editions. to use slave labor. da Prainha, Jardim Suspenso and Machado de
However, recovery plans are still far off and Assis’ childhood home, across the street from the
deMocracy and reparation VaLoNgo inadequate. It is worth noting, for example, that Pier. The main target audience is public school
[pages 40 to 43] Fundação Palmares has plans to install part of educators and students, but there is great interest
its offices at this address, misrepresenting and from the general public, with long waiting lines.
THE ABANDONMENT diminishing the memorial’s vocation of the place. “It is an open wound”, says Marco Antonio
OF VALONGO Or that the project now being processed at Iphan Teobaldo, curator of the Institute, drawing a parallel
(Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico
between the terror of our slaveholding past and the
On the pier built in 1811, in Rio, to receive Nacional) does not foresee the return of the image of the remains of the new black men and
thousands of enslaved people, and where building to the original conditions of the century, women (as the new arrivals from Africa were called)
important archaeological records were but incorporates structural changes carried out over who may be seen in the archaeological windows
found, the strategy of dismantling policies time, such as some alterations carried out when inside the museum. In terms of material remains,
to combat racism and inequality reigns. the shed functioned as a warehouse of armaments very little has been found. Mostly beads, ritual
during the military dictatorship. stones and other such objects because they were
por Maria HirszMaN The precariousness prevailing in Docas Pedro people who were absolutely disarmed and without
2 spreads throughout the entire area The place any kind of funerary treatment. The approximately
.
it is difficult to find a place or situation where the Pier used to work – where, it is estimated, 60,000 bones found on the Institute’s four grounds
that more paradigmatically encapsulates the almost one million enslaved people disembarked in were dumped, piled up, incinerated, turned over to
country’s historical and social contradictions, such just over three decades – is also quite compromised. the ground. “When you show this reality, there is no
as the Cais do Valongo region, in Rio de Janeiro, If throughout the 20th century, the region was way to romanticize slavery. Hence the importance
which for years has been threatened by setbacks smothered by a cloak of oblivion and an evident of this place”, says Marco.
and neglect. Built in 1811 to receive the thousands desire to whitewash a central area known as Little “I treat Valongo as a symptom”, says journalist and
of Africans who made Brazil – and Rio – the main Africa, throughout the 21st century there still reigns historian Rogério Pacheco Jordão, who dedicated
destination port for the slave trade throughout the a strategy of dismantling policies to confront racism his doctorate to the study of the erasure to which
19th century and renovated in 1843 to receive Thereza and inequality. Valongo was subjected over time, through a clear
Christina, who would become Empress of Brazil, process of whitening, an effort to hide from a
Valongo ended up falling into oblivion throughout the neW perspectives memory that pulses and persists. “What erased
20th century, buried under the rubble of the Pereira As the plaintiffs state in the uNesco candidacy Valongo was the ideal of whitening”, he says,
Passos renovation. It survived only in the historical report, “an archaeological site does not speak referring to the renovation and urbanization project
and iconographic records of authors such as Maria for itself”, it needs a whole effort from society that sought to transform Rio de Janeiro into a Paris
Graham, Debret, Rugendas and Thomas Ender. It so that its character and symbolism come to the of the tropics.
was rediscovered in 2011, during excavations for fore. There is resistance and there is an effort from The photographer João Maurício Bragança, who
the renovation of the area, which was to become the community, which organizes itself to face the also chose the Valongo region as a research topic in
the promised Porto Maravilha, government’s negligence, especially at the federal culture and territoriality, a work that led him to closely
During the prospecting work thousands of level, which, once again, puts the dismantling follow the effort of resistance and affirmation of this
archaeological records were found, which would strategy into practice. Several agreements signed community anchored in downtown Rio, recorded
allow us to know a little more about the material in the past remained on paper and there was a in hundreds of images the excavation efforts, the
culture of Rio de Janeiro from the first half of the very harmful change in the management board, historical circuits that led from the pier to the Pretos
19th century, but which still accumulate far from weakening its role. Some more recent initiatives, Novos Cemetery or the Lazareto, where slaves
the public eye in 243 containers, opened from time such as the allocation, within the scope of the Term who came sick were taken, as well as the traditions
to time. for cleaning and inspection, but quickly of Adjustment of Conduct related to the murder preserved in communities such as Pedra do Sal,
hidden again. Thanks to a strong movement from case of João Alberto Silveira Freitas at Carrefour where the newly freedmen lived. . Part of this record
civil society, the site was elevated to the category of facilities and the reparation policies linked to the can be seen in the virtual exhibition O Jardim Secreto
World Heritage Site by Unesco in 2018 – in a similar case, bring new perspectives of financing, with the do Valongo , on the online platform artsteps.com.
category to other historical sites of sensitive memory allocation of R$ 2 million to finance the preparation What is evident in this confrontation between
such as the Auschwitz concentration camp or the of a museum project in the Cais do Valongo region, neglect and the effort to bring to light the remnants
city of Hiroshima. But the pier and its surroundings out of a total of R$ 115 million paid by the company. of this history of repression and resistance – recalled
are still completely abandoned, neglected by the However, the dismantling policy implemented by a little while ago by Chico Buarque in his newest
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