{"id":29714,"date":"2016-06-18T11:09:11","date_gmt":"2016-06-18T14:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=29714"},"modified":"2020-08-07T14:04:02","modified_gmt":"2020-08-07T17:04:02","slug":"one-month-in-evictions-museum-preserves-memory-and-resistance-in-vila-autodromo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=29714","title":{"rendered":"One Month In, Evictions Museum Preserves Memory and Resistance in Vila Aut\u00f3dromo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas\"\"<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

For the original article by Miriane Peregrino\u00a0in Portuguese published by\u00a0Jornal O Cidad\u00e3o\u00a0<\/em>click<\/em> here<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

One month ago, residents and supporters of Vila Aut\u00f3dromo<\/a> chose May 18–International Museum Day–to launch their Evictions Museum<\/a>. Vila Aut\u00f3dromo is located in Rio de Janeiro\u2019s West Zone<\/a>, alongside the increasing number of condominiums in the wealthy\u00a0neighborhood of Barra da Tijuca<\/a> and where the final preparations for the construction of the Olympic Park are taking place before the Games<\/a> begin in August. Vila Aut\u00f3dromo was once home to around 580 families but today only 20 families remain, resisting against real estate\u00a0speculation<\/a> and the Rio de Janeiro city government\u2019s removals<\/a> campaign. The Evictions Museum has come about as another tool in this struggle, disrupting the narrative surrounding mega-events in the city.<\/p>\n

Conceived as an open-air museum, the Evictions Museum invites visitors to follow a path formed of seven sculptures, fenced off by string. They are:<\/p>\n

1. The Light that Doesn\u2019t Go Out<\/em>, close to the wall of the S\u00e3o Jos\u00e9 Oper\u00e1rio Church where residents hold activities and where they leave pieces of furniture taken from evicted homes.<\/p>\n

2. Pillar of Strength<\/em>, which refers to former Vila Aut\u00f3dromo resident Jane Nascimento<\/a>, whose house was demolished<\/a>.<\/p>\n

3. I Am the Neighborhood\u00a0Association<\/em>, a sculpture that symbolizes the fight to protect the Vila Aut\u00f3dromo Neighborhood\u00a0Association building from demolition<\/a>.<\/p>\n

4. Sweet Childhood<\/em>, which represents the children\u2019s park<\/a>, which was recreated in a participatory way, where residents held various events and activities building\u00a0community among residents\u00a0and resistance<\/a>.<\/p>\n

5. Occupation Space \/ Concei\u00e7\u00e3o\u2019s Home<\/em>, which celebrates\u00a0the activities that took place in the Vila Aut\u00f3dromo Cultural Occupations<\/a>, which was held next door to Dona Concei\u00e7\u00e3o\u2019s house. Dona Concei\u00e7\u00e3o let supporters and visitors to the community use her bathroom and cooked and sold food during the occupations. Paintings of hands feature at the bottom of the sculpture, representing the union between the residents and supporters who worked together to build and rebuild the Occupation Space.<\/p>\n

6. The Vila of All Saints<\/em> is a homage to Helo\u00edsa Helena Costa Berto\u2019s<\/a> house, where she lived and kept a place of worship for [the Afro-Brazilian religion] Candombl\u00e9<\/a>. The house, known as Nan\u00e3\u2019s House, was demolished\u00a0on February\u00a024, 2016<\/a>.<\/p>\n

7. The Many Faces of Penha<\/em> shows a feminist symbol that represents Maria da\u00a0Penha<\/a>, one of Vila Aut\u00f3dromo\u2019s community leaders, who was forcibly removed<\/a> on the March 8 2016, International Women\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n

The Eviction Museum\u2019s route was presented by resident Sandra Maria<\/a>, alongside Diana Bogado from the University of Anhanguera in Niter\u00f3i<\/a> and M\u00e1rio Chagas from the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO). Standing in front of the sculpture commemorating\u00a0the Neighborhood\u00a0Association, which was demolished by the City Government, Sandra Maria talked about the loss of the building. \u201cWe kept saying that they were demolishing the physical building but that the Neighborhood Association would live on,\u201d she said. \u201cSo we wrote the words \u2018Neighborhood Association\u2019 on all the houses to make this very clear. The Neighborhood\u00a0Association is not just a building: it\u2019s much more than that. The Association is a collective organization. As long as there are residents living here, organized, talking to each other, fighting, the Association will stay alive.”<\/p>\n

The residents of Vila Aut\u00f3dromo, during these long years of struggle against real estate\u00a0speculation, created many different types of resistance. Writing the words ‘Neighborhood Association’ on all the houses was one of the most moving forms of resistance, which also served to strengthen the residents as a group. Resident Sandra Regina also highlighted the importance of this collective attitude: \u201cThe Neighborhood\u00a0Association is not a house to be demolished; the Association represents every resident. We are the Association.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

Although the sculpture of the Neighborhood\u00a0Association is located in the place where the real building once stood, that’s not the case for the majority of the other works that make up the museum. Due to the construction of the Olympic Park, the removals and other transformations in the area, the sculptures that represent Dona Helo\u00edsa and Dona Penha\u2019s houses, for example, needed to be placed in other locations within Vila Aut\u00f3dromo.<\/p>\n

The house of Helo\u00edsa Helena<\/a>, known by her spiritual name Luizinha de Nan\u00e3, stood alone for months inside the Olympic Park<\/a> before being removed. It is now represented in front of resident Sandra Regina\u2019s house. Dona Helo\u00edsa, now an ex-resident of Vila Aut\u00f3dromo, was moved by\u00a0the homage and talked about how it has been a difficult period for her. Her house was isolated<\/a> from the rest of the community for months, inside the Olympic Park, and visitors\u00a0had to request an ID badge to have access to her home. Helo\u00edsa and her children couldn\u2019t receive visitors. In the run-up to receiving the eviction notice, her light and water supply were\u00a0cut.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get very emotional when I look at this celebration, which I can take away with me,\u201d she said. \u201cThe house was targeted for a long time<\/a>. We suffered from religious prejudice<\/a> as well as social prejudice for living here, for Vila Aut\u00f3dromo being here.\u201d Dona Helo\u00edsa, who was\u00a0honored with the Dandara Award<\/a>\u00a0by the Rio de Janeiro State Legislative Assembly on May\u00a011, talked of how the residents of neighboring Barra da Tijuca never liked having a Candombl\u00e9 place of worship in the area. \u201cPeople in Barra da Tijuca are used to seeing black people dressed in white to serve them as nannies or carers, but they don\u2019t want to see them dressed in white for Candombl\u00e9 ceremonies, playing the abataque drums. The house has gone but I am still fighting for my aims of religious and racial equality. I won\u2019t stop fighting for all of this. And the Evictions Museum helps people be remembered for the struggles they fought.”<\/p>\n

\"\u201cThe<\/a><\/p>\n

Maria da Penha Macena<\/a>, known as Penha,\u00a0was also pleased with the museum. In her opinion, finding out about the eviction stories could mean that other removals do not happen in future: \u201cI think Brazilians have a short memory; they forget things quickly. Often we are beaten and then the next day it\u2019s already forgotten. This means that the people that govern us keep on beating us and we keep on forgetting that we were beaten,\u201d she said. \u201cThis museum is a way for us to remember the story of Vila Aut\u00f3dromo, as well as the stories of removals under other Rio mayors like\u00a0Pereira Passos, Lacerda, and so on<\/a>. If we had remembered more about these evictions\u00a0maybe Vila Aut\u00f3dromo would not have suffered the same fate. So the Evictions Museum is important because it will ensure that the stories of each and every resident will not be forgotten. The community was trampled on, but it won\u2019t be forgotten. And this kind of thing should happen not only in this community, but in other favelas too. Now there\u2019s also no point having this museum if we don\u2019t help it continue; we have to pass on this knowledge to other people so that the story does not die.\u201d<\/p>\n

Resident Nath\u00e1lia Silva<\/a> spoke about how the idea to create the museum came from one of the community\u2019s supporters and she loved it. \u201cIt\u2019s about recovering the history of Vila Aut\u00f3dromo, but at the same time talking about other communities that have been through this process of removal. I am very happy to have taken part in this project. We have been remembering what we once had, the places where we held social gatherings, the residents that came and went in the community and those who resisted, the businesses… to sum up: everything that was important. We called on former residents to celebrate\u00a0with us: they were invited to participate.”<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

Thain\u00e3 de Medeiros<\/a>, specialist in Museum Studies and resident of Complexo do Alem\u00e3o<\/a>, is a supporter of Vila Aut\u00f3dromo and said that memory<\/a> is a form of resistance and cited the ways memory has been used in this way by residents of Aldeia de Imbu\u00ed<\/a>\u00a0in Niter\u00f3i and Horto<\/a> in the South Zone<\/a>\u00a0of Rio as a tool for defending themselves during the process of being threatened with removal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn these two places people are resisting through memory, showing that they are not invaders of territory. It is a narrative dispute about who it is that’s being removed,\u201d he said. \u201cImbu\u00ed is showing itself through memory, through documents. They haven\u2019t built a museum but they are using similar memory-building tools to show that they have been living there since the early 1800s. How can they be invaders if they\u2019ve been there for so long? Then you\u2019ve got the Horto Museum<\/a> too, which is a real museum that was built precisely to show that the residents of Horto have been living there for a long time and that they too are not invaders. The real invaders are the mansions that are being built in the area. So the issue of memory within the dynamics of removals, disputing the narrative over who is the invader and who needs to leave, is very important.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe motivation behind the creation of the Evictions Museum is, firstly, to reflect on the context in which removals have historically happened in Rio. It\u2019s a context regarding the construction of the city\u2019s memory, the collective memory of a Rio de Janeiro in which the poorest residents are removed and end up being forgotten,\u201d said Thain\u00e3, whose family also went through a process of removal. \u201cThe eviction process is always very cruel because it always hits the weakest the hardest.\u201d<\/p>\n

M\u00e1rio Chagas, specialist in Museum Studies and professor at UNIRIO, has also been following the construction of the Evictions Museum. \u201cIt\u2019s a museum of resistance and struggle. This museum does not celebrate grief; it celebrates powerful memory, creative memory, memory that looks to the future. It is also a kind of movable museum, which can be relocated to other communities,\u201d he said. \u201cAs well as covering current removals, it can look into the history of removals. The museum\u2019s importance is that it documents the strength of Vila Aut\u00f3dromo residents, who are resisting the government\u2019s attempt to destroy a piece of land in the name of mega-investment without taking into account the memory, the lives and the sociability of the people living there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"On<\/a><\/p>\n

M\u00e1rio Chagas highlighted that the theme of this year\u2019s International Museum Day is \u201cMuseums and Cultural Landscapes<\/a>\u201d and that this has a direct link with the Evictions Museum: \u201cThis landscape of devastated land, this cultural landscape that was destroyed and yet in which new possibilities are being built. Here we are seeing how the authorities are destroying landscapes, interfering in a destructive way. They are building new landscapes here, landscapes that fit their interests but do not respect the landscapes<\/a> that have been built by those who used to live here.\u201d M\u00e1rio explains that \u201cthe theme of the Evictions Museum\u2019s exhibition is \u2018memory cannot be evicted\u2019. The houses can be removed, turn to debris but the memory is there, pulsing, exploding. There\u2019s a kind of poetic and political power here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

Diana Bogado, architect and professor at the Anhanguera University, presented at the museum alongside resident Sandra Maria. Diana has been working in Vila Aut\u00f3dromo for over a year through a project linked to the university and explained the recreation of the children\u2019s park<\/a> was one of the project\u2019s first actions. Many community events took place in the park. The second stage of the project was the Evictions Museum, which involved the participation of her students working with residents, conducting\u00a0interviews and creating the sculptures that make up the museum\u2019s current open-air exhibition.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs an educational process this was a big success,\u201d said Diana. \u201cFirstly because of the emphasis on participation<\/a> and also because it was interdisciplinary. We helped in different ways, giving lessons in Vila Aut\u00f3dromo. This resulted in the creation of a map of the community, made from residents\u2019 testimonials. Once we\u2019d mapped the most important buildings mentioned by residents, we chose a few and made the sculptures. As a visitor to and supporter of the community I have found it very interesting to see how we have, through the Evictions Museum, managed to recreate reference points for this area because at some moments Vila Aut\u00f3dromo has totally lost its character. We wouldn\u2019t know which road to take to leave the community, or where the association was located, for example. So with the museum we managed to bring back some of these reference points, which had disappeared due to the removals.\u201d<\/p>\n

As well as the sculptures of the Evictions Museum, something else has changed the environment in Vila Aut\u00f3dromo recently: the \u201ccontainer houses.\u201d On May\u00a013 these containers were brought to the community, in order to shelter nine of the 20 families that have chosen to stay there. The Rio city government recently signed an agreement<\/a> with residents to allow these 20 families to remain living in Vila Aut\u00f3dromo. These containers serve as temporary housing\u00a0while the City builds permanent houses.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey wanted us to leave so they could build on this land but\u00a0we didn\u2019t accept that. We\u2019re not leaving. After breathing in so much dust and facing up to these construction works, why would we want to give in now?\u201d asked Maria da Penha. \u201cNow we want to monitor [the construction of our new] houses because [our original] houses were built by us. These won’t be. They\u2019ll be built by other people who don\u2019t know my story. They have no value to them: they\u2019re just more houses. But our houses are important to us. So we have formed a team of three residents to monitor\u00a0the construction: they\u2019re going to keep an eye on things and watch what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sandra Regina is one of Vila Aut\u00f3dromo’s residents who believes in the future of the community and made a comment about the changing distance between the community and the nearest supermarket:\u00a0\u201cThe nearby supermarket is close enough to walk to; it\u2019s not far from here. Where before we used to have to go a long way, to Taquara, to go shopping, now we have a supermarket right next door. We used to have to go and do a month\u2019s shopping at a time. On the way back home we had to get off the bus and walk the last part of the way because the bus didn\u2019t stop anywhere near our houses. Everything was scarce. Access to electricity was precarious. Don\u2019t even get me started on water! The road that used to be here\u2013you can no longer see it, it was where Penha\u2019s house used to be\u2013was made from sand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sandra Regina went on:\u00a0\u201cIt used to be difficult to go shopping. My sister would arrange to go with someone else to carry the shopping, to help her do her shopping for the month all in one go. It was so hard! Now that we\u2019re starting to see progress,\u00a0we\u2019re being told to leave? No way! It\u2019s now that we have to stay and make the most of it! Because when times were hard it was just us here; now that things are getting better are we going to let this place become for rich people only? No. Rich people have cars, drivers\u2026 they have everything. We only have the sweat on our foreheads and our legs. It\u2019s the strength of our will. Now we need to stay here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Maria<\/a><\/p>\n

Taking a moment to remember and talk of hopes for the future, resident Luiz Claudio Silva spoke about the years of removals that took place in Vila Aut\u00f3dromo: “What happened was very disloyal. We are a community made up of families in need, fighting against powerful companies: Odebrecht, Carvalho Hosken<\/a>, Andrade Gutierrez. We were fighting against a conniving government, watching what was going on in our community with its arms crossed. We had to find strength in places where we felt like we had nothing left. We understand why many people gave up: it\u2019s not easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe used to have 600 families here; now there are 20,\u201d Luiz went on. \u201cNot even 10% of the community remain. The 20 crazy families, that\u2019s what many of the people who left called us. But Jesus Christ was also called crazy because of the way he clung on, the way he talked, and we inherited some of this madness. I turned down large compensation sums<\/a>.\u00a0I gave up my house, which was much bigger, in order to accept a house measuring 55 square meters on a piece of land measuring 180 square meters. Many people would say this is crazy, but not me. Because I\u2019m not thinking about the money. I\u2019m fighting to be respected. If there\u2019s a law<\/a> that says that I have a right to this land, why do I need to leave? To please the authorities, to please the big companies? No way! If there\u2019s a law that says that this is an Area of Special Social Interest<\/a> for housing, if we have two land titles given to us by two different governors of the state\u00a0of Rio\u2026 at some point this has got to be respected! It\u2019s not possible for us to keep on giving this up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Residents<\/a><\/p>\n

Maria da Penha Macena also complained about conformism among Brazilians. \u201cOur country has a big problem. We Brazilians give in very easily. We don\u2019t claim our rights because we think others have more power than us. But we are all equal. Land does not belong to men: we just think it belongs to us when really it belongs to God. Why do I have to sell [my land]? They want to buy my rights. I speak for myself: I didn\u2019t want to sell my rights. Because I consider every negotiation that was done here to be a form of selling our rights, whether we sold them due to pressure<\/a>, or force<\/a>, or whether we did it out of \u2018free will,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cI always said that I wouldn\u2019t leave my house. Then when I saw that I was going to lose my house after all, I started saying that I wasn\u2019t going to leave the community instead.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a lot of faith; I truly believe in God,\u201d Penha continued. \u201cI believe in something you can’t see\u00a0and I think it was because of this that I have managed to stay living here. I like living my life by sharing with others; everything I own is someone else\u2019s too. I didn\u2019t fight this struggle with anger. I fought out of love. This is a struggle out of love. Love for my history, love for my land, love for my rights. I think that people lose themselves very quickly. They forget to love what they have, they\u2019re always looking to love what they don\u2019t have. I fought out of love for what I have. And what do I have? Nothing. Nothing but my land and the history I created here. And I\u2019m very happy here. I have always said that happiness is not something that can be sold or bought. They tried to buy mine from me, but they didn\u2019t succeed.”<\/p>\n

May was an intense month for cultural activities in Rio and beyond: The Museu da Mar\u00e9<\/a>, the first museum created by favela residents, celebrated its tenth anniversary under the threat of eviction<\/a>. On the other side of the city, in the Port Region<\/a>, the Museum of Tomorrow<\/a> is being showcased by the government as an official product for Rio\u2019s mega-events. At a national level, the Interim President Michel Temer got rid of and then reinstated<\/a> the Ministry of Culture. In Argentina, President Macri closed the Bicentennial Museum claiming necessary refurbishment but others have claimed it is a move to \u201cdepoliticize\u201d or remove the influence of the left on cultural centers in the country. All this happened during the month of International Museum Day. In a context in which not only memory but also the narrative of history is in dispute, the creation of the Evictions Museum represents a symbolic and fundamentally political act of resistance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas For the original article by Miriane Peregrino\u00a0in Portuguese published by\u00a0Jornal O Cidad\u00e3o\u00a0click here. One month ago, residents and supporters of Vila Aut\u00f3dromo chose May 18–International Museum Day–to launch their Evictions Museum. […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":29726,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1294,1293,1854,1668,1736,1328,1268,329],"tags":[9,225,1500,756,910,504,2032,221,674,11,170,188,1399,1160,1346,716,618,5,1292,152,10,233,270,2463,4,21],"writer":[1532],"translator":[1401],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-29714","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-communitymedia","8":"category-evictionswatch","9":"category-housingwatch","10":"category-participationwatch","11":"category-1736","12":"category-by-community-contributors","13":"category-favelaculture","14":"category-solutions","15":"tag-9","16":"tag-barra-da-tijuca","17":"tag-candomble","18":"tag-community-organizing","19":"tag-creative-organizing","20":"tag-culture","21":"tag-evictions-museum","22":"tag-favela-culture","23":"tag-memory","24":"tag-forced-evictions","25":"tag-historic-preservation","26":"tag-history","27":"tag-jornal-o-cidadao","28":"tag-museu-da-mare","29":"tag-museu-do-horto","30":"tag-museum","31":"tag-neighborhood-association","32":"tag-olympics","33":"tag-organizing","34":"tag-participation","35":"tag-real-estate-speculation","36":"tag-religious-freedom","37":"tag-resistance","38":"tag-social-museology","39":"tag-vila-autodromo","40":"tag-west-zone","41":"writer-miriane-peregrino","42":"translator-sarah-jacobs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29714"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=29714"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=29714"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=29714"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=29714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}