Olhai Por Nois”/“Look at Us”: Performing Alternative Belonging Through the Mediatization of the Self in Sao Paulo
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“Olhai Por Nois”/“Look at Us”: Performing Alternative Belonging through the Mediatization of the Self in Sao Paulo Victoria Harari Alves de Araujo Student Number: 12288608 Master's Thesis Comparative Cultural Analysis Supervision: Prof. dr. Esther Peeren Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter One: (Non-)Belonging to Sao Paulo 1.1 Introduction 9 1.2 The Pateo do Collegio and Normative Belonging 9 1.3 Pixação and Alternative Belonging 17 1.4 Conclusion 29 Chapter Two: The “Olhai Por Nois”/“Look at Us” Action 2.1 Introduction 31 2.2 Picho or Pixo? 31 2.3 Olhai Por Nois 32 2.4 The Vandalized Street Dwellers 35 2.5 The Pateo do Collegio's Trajectory 38 2.6 The Cleaning Effort 39 2.7 The Investigation 40 2.8 Motivations 41 2.9 Not the First Time 43 2.10 Becoming Us 46 2.11 Conclusion 47 Chapter Three: The Mediatization of the Self on @massive_mia 3.1 Introduction 49 3.2 França's Territory 49 3.3 França as a Pixador 55 3.4 França as an Artist and an Artivist 60 3.5 França as a Curator and a Cultural Articulator 61 3.6 França as a Brand 63 3.7 Olhai Por Nois as a Sub-Brand and a Pixo 65 3.8 Conclusion 69 Conclusion 71 Works Cited 75 1 Introduction The Pateo do Collegio (or Patio do Colégio) is an archaeological site marking the first construction of Sao Paulo; it is considered the starting point of Latin America's largest city. On April 10th, 2018, 464 years after its inauguration, people awoke to find that the Pateo do Collegio had the phrase "Olhai Por Nois" (Look For Us) blazoned across its façade in large red painted letters (figure 1). Fig. 1. Pateo do Collegio: Rovena Rosa/Agência Brasil. "Pichador do Pátio do Colégio também atacou Monumento às Bandeiras e Morumbi". ISTOÉ (https://istoe.com.br/pichador-do-patio-do-colegio-tambem-atacou-monumento-as-bandeiras-e-morum bi/) This thesis intends to explore the senses of belonging João Luis Prado Simões França, leader of the group responsible for the act, created through the presentation of this deed and of his artistic and activist persona in various online media. The focus will be on the multiple senses of belonging created through the mediation of the self 2 and the consequences of these senses of belonging for the individual and for the groups to which he belongs, or on behalf of which he seeks to act. In her article “Belonging and the Politics of Belonging,” Nira Yuval-Davis emphasises that "belonging" is always a dynamic and organic process. Individuals can belong in different ways and to various objects and subjects. These senses of belonging are the result of acts of self-identification or identification performed by others (Yuval-Davis, 199). The concept of belonging essentially refers to an emotional connection, to feeling "at home" and also to feeling secure (Yuval-Davis, 197). Sao Paulo, characterised by a frenetic pace and pervasive violence, could be considered to be a place where developing a sense of belonging would be hindered by significant obstacles. The constant lack of security turns the city into what Marc Augé calls a “non-place”: an urban space with many people but with limited social actions (Tufte, 127). In Sao Paulo, the sensation of insecurity is so tangible that isolation through walls and enclosed condominiums has become an element of desire and social status (Altamirano, 2018:116). Paulistana society is organized into "bubbles" segmented mainly by class and ethnicity. In addition, "the city that does not stop" is also known for the social disparities and population segregation materialised by the populous slums (figure 2), which contain 11% of the city’s total population (more than two million people) according to the IBGE (The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics). The constant marginalisation1 of individuals who do not reflect the white European standard point to the difficulty Sao Paulo has in establishing an urban space and identity that are congruent with its entire population. França, a black man of humble origin, is one of the victims of this marginalisation. 1 To a further understanding of the causes and consequences of the marginalization phenomena in Sao Paulo see the "Mapa da Desigualdade 2019" research carried by the institution Rede Nova São Paulo (https://www.nossasaopaulo.org.br/tag/mapa-da-desigualdade/) 3 Fig. 2. Paraisópolis Slum: (Danny Lehman/Corbis). "As 10 maiores (e mais impressionantes) favelas do Brasil". Exame (https://exame.abril.com.br/brasil/as-10-maiores-e-mais-impressionantes-favelas-do-brasil/) After the phrase “Olhai Por Nois" appeared on the Pateo do Collegio, the leading newspapers—despite their distinct political positions—all immediately identified it as a criminal act, stressing that this type of behaviour is not accepted by the Paulistana society. According to Yuval-Davis, "Belonging tends to be naturalised and becomes articulated and politicised only when it is threatened in some way. The politics of belonging comprises specific political projects aimed at constructing belonging in particular ways to particular collectives that are, at the same time, themselves being constructed by these projects in very particular ways" (Yuval-Davis, 197). The reaction of the mainstream media outlets is consistent with this concept of a "politics of belonging" because it emerges as a response to an apparent threat. The newspapers’ objective seemed to be to neutralize the possible criticisms articulated by the act in order to keep the existing system in place. The Cambridge Dictionary states that a vandal is "a person who intentionally damages property belonging to other people.” By labeling the act as "vandalism," the media outlets suggested that 4 the actors did not belong to the city. Those responsible for the so-called pichação on the Pateo do Collegio were defined as outsiders. In Yuval-Davis’s terms, the event thus prompted the explicit articulation of the system of belonging in Sao Paulo that already marginalised people like França. Pichação can be considered as a translation of the English term “graffiti.” In the vocabulary of the urban culture of Sao Paulo, it denotes an action that uses straightforward words or drawings to mark one’s presence and to call attention to oneself or to some cause. The authorship of a pichação can be attributed to any citizen and it can be written with any tool for drawing, painting, writing or scribbling. Its aesthetic arrangement does not require a pattern in terms of the style of the letters, symbols or drawings, but only in the mode of occupancy of the spaces, and its support can be any surface (Altamirano, 2017:4). It is not common for Brazilian mainstream media outlets to provide personal information about the perpetrators of this type of crime. However, in França’s case they eventually divulged not only official data, such as his occupation as a pastry confectioner and details about his family, but also his identity as a pichador or pixador (working under the alias Mia - Massive Ilegal Arts) and his social media account: @massive_mia (Instagram). Significantly (and paradoxically), it was this disclosure that revealed that João França was not only the "vandal" and criminal "pichador" affirmed by the traditional media. On Instagram, he positions himself and is recognized as having a number of identities: he is the vandal, the confectioner, the father and the pichador, but also the artist, the art curator, the activist, and the pixador (with an “x” instead of “ch”). Pixação refers to a visual manifestation executed with spray paint in public and private spaces characteristic of the city of Sao Paulo. If the Pateo do Collegio is the cradle of the city, the city is also the cradle of the pixação. Pixação is a form of closed communication with stylized letters used among a collective consisting of several groups that are usually divided by neighbourhoods and zones. Each group has a leader, "the head", and a name, called a "brand", which serves to distinguish 5 the group from others (Pereira, 2013:104). The pixadores - individuals who are part of the collectivity - are encouraged to perfectly replicate the signature, called pixo, and to spread the brand throughout the city. Having the highest number of signatures scattered through the urban territory and in places of high visibility provides prestige for the individual and their group, and organises the social structure of this collectivity. According to the anthropologist Alexandre Barbosa Pereira, for the youth of the periphery pixo becomes a means of gaining social visibility (figure 3) in a context in which they are born marginalized (Pereira, 2013:83). Fig. 3. Pixação imposes the presence of the socially, spatially and politically marginalized individual. Treme-treme Building in Sao Paulo: Cleber Zerrenner/Nilton Fukuda. Beside Colors. (http://besidecolors.com/treme-treme/) This thesis will explore the different senses of belonging generated from the way França, after the "Olhai Por Nois" action, became involved in a public, offline and online, dialogue with several social groups revolving around the notions of 6 collectivity, territory and language. Furthermore, it will examine the consequences of the multiple senses of belonging articulated in this dialogue for the individual and his surroundings. To this end, the thesis will be segmented according to the three significant stages in the "Olhai Por Nois" case: (i) the visual manifestation of the phrase on the Pateo do Collegio, (ii) the responses to this manifestation in online media outlets, and (iii) França's self-presentation on his personal Instagram account. Concerning notions of collectivity, the concept of dispossession, from Judith Butler and Athena Athanasiou’s book Dispossession: The Performative in the Political, is used to highlight França’s relational trajectory through the social fabrics the different online media brought him into contact with after the “Olhai Por Nois” action.