Artist fights Bolsonaro with animal costumes

Tired with monotonous demonstrations, the Brazilian created a very unique group action with parrots, pink dolphins, and six-legged insects.

A hog and a leopard were dancing one Saturday in October between the city’s tallest buildings, in front of hundreds of people who had gathered to oppose the far-right president of Brazil.

They were joined by a six-legged beetle, a parrot, a pink dolphin, and over a dozen more individuals dressed in very intricate animal costumes. They all held banners with gnomic expressions like “Cosmic Dancer,” “Defend Happiness,” and “Gaia’s Return” written in Portuguese on them. Others bubbled or burnt incense, while others danced.

‘Pela vida’ (‘for life’) … two of Rivane Neuenschwander and Mariana Lacerda’s protesters. Photograph: Eduardo Ortega

A few weeks later, this unusual assemblage reappeared during another demonstration that was smaller and organized by the homeless organization. The Crystal Forest, they claimed to be. Further research showed that Mariana Lacerda and Rivane Neuenschwander, two artists, established the odd theatrical troupe that participated in eight rallies and demonstrations across the city.

We had the notion of interfering with the protests, Neuenschwander says as he sits in his workshop in the west of Sao Paulo with the costumes and masks heaped up on a table and the weird protest banners stacked to the side. We were interested in modifying the left’s protest vocabulary since it is consistently expressed using the same social grammar.

Together, the two created the 30-minute documentary I Am a Macaw, which will have its world debut this Sunday in Porto, Portugal, as Brazil goes to the polls for its presidential election. The video captures this year of interventions. In 2018, a sizable Brazilian expat population in Portugal decisively backed Jair Bolsonaro, who is now running for re-election.

The movie is a heartbreaking and somber depiction of the country’s left wing near its breaking point. A bizarre musical soundtrack by Belo Horizonte-based bands O Grivo blends with the protest-related noises, such as yells and chants and political speeches. Due to the amount of people and political activity being shown, the streets of Sao Paulo seem uncanny as screeching violins clash with booming gongs and clanging glockenspiels.

We were unsure of what to anticipate, says Neuenschwander. “The initial demonstration generated a lot of buzz and seemed to be a huge success. With up to 50 costumed protesters present, we went to seven to eight of them. With the idealistic notion that maybe everyone would eventually arrive dressed up, we want to infect the street.

In reference to Bruno Pereira, the former Amazon security officer who was killed with British journalist Dom Phillips in June, Neuenschwander recollects that “when Dom and Bruno were murdered there was a demonstration organized on a Saturday morning at Masp.” There was just a tiny handful of Guarani people present. It was unusual since it was pouring. The Indigenous protestors are seen mixing outside So Paulo’s largest art museum, chanting and applying traditional face paint to one another.

I Wish Your Wish by Rivane Neuenschwander displayed at Tate Saint Ives. Photograph: Cecilia Colussi Stock/Alamy

The work has precedence in earlier Neuenschwander endeavors. She worked with groups of London kids in 2015 to exhibit a collection of meticulously crafted capes that represented each child’s worst fear and were shown at the Whitechapel Gallery. In contrast, I Wish Your Wish (2003) imitated pilgrimage sites in Brazil by displaying hundreds of ribbons with the best wishes of visitors.

The artist claims that the court struggle over a requirement that only land inhabited by Indigenous communities on the day the Brazilian constitution was enacted in 1988 could be the subject of preservation served as the initial inspiration for I Am a Macaw. Even if it is important, they are not just battling this one controversy; rather, they are pushing for a fundamental resetting of humanity’s relationship with the natural world. Many of their protest signs, such as “Legal Animism,” “Insurgent Corals,” and “The Future Is Ancestral,” make this suggestion.

We intended to forward the conversation on the rights of nature, which takes place in Ecuador and was included in Chile’s proposed constitution, but isn’t really happening in mainstream Brazil, according to the author.

Ecuador became the first nation in the world to recognize the humanity of inanimate objects like rivers and mountains in 2008. As a result, it recognized the special connection that exists between indigenous people and the land, which is often intertwined with spiritual beliefs and so safeguarded.

In Lacerda’s video, we witness Neuenschwander’s creatures engaged in activities other than demonstrations, like as passing out flyers or leafleting in downtown So Paulo. Some depict horrific arson attacks in the jungle or assaults on indigenous settlements, while others quote the Ecuadorian constitution: One poster reads, “Nature has the right to complete respect for its existence,” and another, “Nature has the right to be restored.”

Neuenschwander explains, “We are attempting to introduce a deeper language to the demonstrations, away from the customary clichés of the left. We heard from Indigenous leaders like Davi Kopenawa Yanomami and heard a philosopher from Rio named António Carvalho speak about bringing enchantment to the streets as well as his views of decolonization and how everything is interrelated.

Carvalho discusses suspending “the modern dualism between body and mind, nature and culture, and human and non-human” in a paper from 2016. recognizing that modernity’s driving force is primarily extractive.

But does Neuenschwander still think that protest can be effective? Brazil saw a wave of era-defining protests against the nation’s many injustices in 2013, which some claim unwittingly paved the way for the far-right government of today and the 2016 impeachment of left-wing president Dilma Roussef.

‘I still see protest as a positive thing’ … a still from I Am a Macaw by Rivane Neuenschwander and Mariana Lacerda. Photograph: Eduardo Ortega

“I still see protest as a positive thing,” Neuenschwander says. “There’s a lot of discussion of what happened in 2013 and how 2016 came about, how that energy got manipulated, how the right wing captured the energy. The film is pretty melancholic, yes; a reflection of how melancholic Brazil has been, a reflection of going to so many demonstrations.”

“We suffered mentally as Bolsonaro destroyed everything,” she says in her conclusion. Both my pals and I experienced pain. We had depression, therefore watching this movie together while dressed up and drinking beer helped. The movie captures those highs and lows: when you’re feeling so down but then the following day you get up and say, “Let’s fight again!’

Thanks to Adrian Horton at The Guardian whose reporting provided the original basis for this story.