Memento (era tudo sobre ontem)

Abstract

The work aims to compose, through the production of poetic pieces and the disclosure of a creative process, an essay that reflects on memory in urban spaces and the imagination of a becoming-black in the city. It takes as a poetic trigger the episode of the fall of the monument to the slaveholder Bernardo Mascarenhas in Juiz de Fora - MG, seeking to address the question: What to do with the ruins of a colonial past that persist in spaces, even if invisible, in a public manner? To achieve this, some images, gestures, and writings from the last four years of artistic practice (2020-2024) are presented, as well as the composition that bears the name of this text, "memento (it was all about yesterday)," based on a possible branching narrative of a Saturday and Sunday in September 2023. Along this journey, a dialogue is constructed with Denise Ferreira da Silva, Edouard Glissant, Antônio Bispo dos Santos, Fred Moten, Stefano Harney, among other authors, as well as with family and acquaintances, discussing life, race, Afro-diasporic connections, refusal and escape.