Joy is also a memory. If Brazil is made of samba, it is in batuque that resistance is strengthened. These ideas echo among the 130 works in “Chegança,” the inaugural exhibition of the Vassouras Museum, which opens after six years of restoration, in the inland city of Rio de Janeiro, under the direction of Catarina Duncan.
Organized by Marcelo Campos and Thayná Trindade, the collective is organized into three groups and dives into the history and culture of Vale do Café through different movements between past and present. It is a kind of journey that reveals the identity of the region and exposes a musical center named, for good reason, Mississippi Carioca.
The “Folias” section marks the start of a journey through the territory, presented as a procession guided by songs and presences. Popular expressions still present throughout the interior of the Brazilian southeast, up to the north of Rio, are taking shape.
In “Visões de Luvemba”, Caio Rosa recounts the practice of bate-bolas, carnival groups who parade in costumes through the streets of Rio’s suburbs, hitting rubber balls on the ground. The story is organized from the Bakongo cosmogram, of the Bantu people, proposing an Afro-diasporic origin for the masks used in this festive ritual. In Rafa Bqueer’s video, a trans person dances to a religious beat until after a few rounds their movements turn into a ball game.
It is obvious that Afro-Catholic and popular culture meets urban aesthetics. Among the images taken in Vassouras and on the hills of Formiga, Tuiuti and Salgueiro, we see kings with dyed hair, with sunglasses or masks that resemble tropical cosplays.
“These are elements that reveal allegories of Brazilian identity – the way we dress and organize ourselves around fantasy,” says Campos, one of the curators. The costumes find echoes in the works of Beatriz Milhazes, Sonia Gomes and Lídia Lisboa, who construct contemporary readings of the national allegory.
The painting “Festa do Divino”, by Djanira, dialogues with the banners, masks and flags of the festivities and reisados in the works of Eustáquio Neves, Pedro Neves and Rodolfo Teixeira. “It’s always a response of the population of African origin to the colonial presence,” Campos explains. The proposal is to highlight memory – without erasing or reiterating the violence in the region.
The “Vapor” core is part of the routes that, for decades, connected Vale do Café to Central do Brasil. The works in the room reveal historical figures, showing how the train whistle gave birth to the Jongo drums and the ancestral voices that gave birth to samba.
Clementina de Jesus has her own space, with photos by Walter Firmo. His image of Bahian women on the train is also his own, which dialogues with the railway archives and the paintings of Bea Machado, Heitor dos Prazeres and Wallace Pato. Dalton Paula presents portraits of Mariana Crioula and Manoel Congo, alongside works by Yhuri Cruz – a suggestion of a tombstone for Congo and a sort of soap opera about jongo, a rhythm brought to Brazil by residents of the Angolan region.
Railroad imagery connected farms and evolving towns. Without directly addressing the exploitation of enslaved bodies, the curator approaches the theme through the painting “Harvest”, by Djanira, and the paintings of André Grifo, which represent agricultural buildings in decay.
The last room, “Milagre”, follows the waters of the Paraíba do Sul river. Between the works that tell of the appearance of Nossa Senhora da Conceição, the presence of Caboclo d’Água and Maria Lata d’Água, it is possible to perceive a place in continuous flow, where faith, nature and musicality intertwine.
In this scenario, Nádia Taquary’s mermaid stands out in dialogue with “Figure Só”, by Tarsila do Amaral. The waves of the modernist character’s hair follow the design of rivers and networks, evoked by Davi Jesus do Nascimento and Taquary herself.
There are also many indigenous artists, such as Moara Tupinambá, Denilson Baniwa and Tamikuã Txihi, as well as works linked to the Puri culture, a people of the region who seek to save their language and their territory.