Geography of Love

From the (i)material heritage of Ricardo Braga

I called this gesture “Geography of Love.” An atlas – cathartic, liberating and magical, like the fairy tales – that celebrates our dead and queer ancestors.

This show explores the heritage of Ricardo Wagner Braga, my uncle – who was chasing me around the house, dressed as a witch – as a possibility of creating an updated, festive and erotic cartography of the world. The inheritance is a box with personal archives collected in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. The geographical collection includes seventeen Brazilian states (Amazonas, Pará, Pernambuco, Sergipe, Paraiba, Ceará, Bahia, Mato Grosso, Federal District, Goiás, Espírito Santo, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Minas Gerais, Santa Catarina, Paraná, and Rio Grande do Sul); and fourteen countries (Angola, Chile, United States of America, Peru, Panama, Portugal, Canada, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, England, Israel, Iraq and Switzerland).
This collection, among the objects, contains: two hundred and fifty-four city postcards, written and stamped, exchanged with about one hundred and sixty women and men (80% men, 90% Brazilians); two hundred and fifty postcards from cities with no stamp and signature; identity documents; love letters; longing letters; personal photographs; photographs of ‘male mermaids’; diary sheets; a drawing of “Miss Universe”; postcards sent by me; Christmas’ cards; ‘saints of death’; among others.
This melodrama proposes to be a utopian gesture to update Ricardo’s archives and heritage, deceased as a result of AIDS, in the year two thousand and eleven. This gesture was made with Love and offerings: material; immaterials; aesthetic; iconographic; mythological; poetic; spiritual; magical and intuitive.

CONCEPTION, SETTING, DRAMATURGY, CHOREOGRAPHY, MUSIC & PERFORMANCE Diego Bragà
SOUND PAINTING, MUSIC & PERFORMANCE Rui Lima & Sérgio Martins
SCENOGRAPHIC PAINTING Martim Dinis
CRYSTAL PAINTING Andrea Pazes
LIGHT DESIGN Teresa Antunes
MUSICAL PRODUCTION OF EP GEOGRAFIA DO AMOR Chico Neves| Estúdio304
SUPPORT Fundação GDA and Self-Mistake/Self-Curating

República Portuguesa – Ministério da Cultura (Garantir Cultura - Fundo Fomento Cultural)