Eleanor Peake reflects on Gabriela Golder’s ‘Conversation Piece’. She asks, in a world of YouTube radicalisation and political isolation, what would happen if the far right spoke to their grandmothers?

In the first season of REEL BRAZIL: Mutinies in Video Art, the film O Espírito da TV spotlights the Waiãpi people of the Amazon Rainforest. It shows their bold fight to hold onto their land and traditions against the push of new technology and outsiders. This post dives into that story, exploring how one video piece captures a group’s stand for cultural survival and how in today’s world the idea of resistance is not too far fetched.

In the first season of REEL BRAZIL: Mutinies in Video Art, the film O Espírito da TV spotlights the Waiãpi people of the Amazon Rainforest. It shows their bold fight to hold onto their land and traditions against the push of new technology and outsiders. This post dives into that story, exploring how one video piece captures a group’s stand for cultural survival and how in today’s world the idea of resistance is not too far fetched.

The military dictatorship in Brazil (1964-1985) imposed an official rhetoric which promoted a notion of social morality based on the pillars of heterosexuality, the traditional family, and Christian values. Within this narrative, LGBTQI+ communities were portrayed as a threat to public order and morality, leading to their marginalisation and justifying violence against them.
Movements and art collectives became refuges for resistance, expression and cultural production, turning places into pockets of resistance where counterculture thrived, while challenging the patriarchal and heteronormative paradigm.