THE FIG SIGN

When we lack the verb, we turn to the eloquent silence of images. It is the possibility of seeing the discourse in what refuses to be said. 2020 is the year in which our emotional, social and linguistic vocabularies reach the adjectives limit: we lacked words that would account for our experiences of mourning and struggle. In their absence, Mix Brasil silenced their verb and spoke for bodies.

The fig sign, used in Europe since the Romans with associations with sexuality and fertility, arrives in Brazil and merges with Afro-Braziliian temple cults, popularly spreading as an amulet of protection against destructive forces. From my photograph of this gesture in the series “Eledá” (2020) came the invitation to develop the visual identity of the 28th edition of the festival, which, for the first time, would not have a word as its theme, but this gesture.

When we raise our hands with the fig sign, we remember that our bodies are an indication and presence of the tangible and intangible struggles of the bodies that preceded us. Faced with the colonization of our symbols and existences, the evocation of sexualities and ancestry that inhabit us signifies and exalts the subjectivities that were denied us as LGBTQIA+ people. Our bodies are our amulets: they will not erase us, nor will their bad omen bring us down!

Axé!

Felippe Moraes

NOV 14 | saturday

» 11am @ Vila Itororó

R. Pedroso, 238 – Bela Vista, São Paulo – SP