mimimi #1: 12-minute performance, 2017
The research for this text began in 2017, at the request of the then curator of Flip_Festa Literária de Paraty, Joselia Aguiar, who planned, for the festival that year, a series of poetic readings, which she called “Fruto Estranho” (inspired by the poem “Strange Fruit” by Abel Meeropol). Aguiar asked me to create a performance that brought together poetry and photography, to be presented at the Church of Paraty.
The text is the result of an iconographic research on infamous femicides and on executions of Brazilian female activists, whose corpses’ photos are to be found in Google images. Special attention is given to the female victims of Brazilian right-wing military dictatorship (1964-1985). When it comes to exposure of women’s bodies, including exposure of their dead bodies, patriarchal society can go extremely far on its perversity. As I collected these images, I could not stop thinking of Susan Sontag’s “Regarding the pain of others”, in which she talks about our perverse relationship with war imagery, using her experience in the war in Sarajevo as basis. Considering that Brazil is the fifth country in number of femicides in the world, according to UN, with 13 women being killed in the country every day, the parallel is unfortunately quite suitable. The 12-minute performance consists of descriptions only – no image is shown. To watch the full performance, please click on the image below. To download the full text (Portuguese version only): mimimi #1.
Later that year, the performance was part of the exhibition “Eu sou muitas”, curated by Karlla Girotto and presented in Sao Paulo:
In early 2020, the text was revised and updated, and I presented it live again for the first since 2017, during an event at Biblioteca Mário de Andrade, in Sao Paulo (Brazil), that dealt with the consequences of Brazilian Military Dictorship for women. In mid-2021, an audio version of the performance was part of the exhibition Biblioteca Floresta, at Sesc Belém, in Sao Paulo, accompanied by an interview about the research and final result:
In fall 2022, the full text will be published for the first time, in the anthology “Noticía da literatura brasileira – vol. 1”, organised by the writer Ricardo Lísias.
More references:
. Susan Sontag, “Diante da dor dos outros”, tradução de Rubens Figueiredo (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2003)
. http://memoriasdaditadura.org.br/
. http://comissaodaverdade.al.sp.gov.br/
. https://www.globalwitness.org/documents/18482/On_Dangerous_Ground.pdf
adelaide ivánova 