This work springs from inside my garden in ruins, with my children entering adolescence.
The name CENTENNIALS came from a desire of finding a word that would be able to connect somehow the people I have met along this work.
I understand that capturing a generation involves many layers beyond chronological time and with the living process of changes happening before my eyes, I meet with a group of people of this generation, searching for our relationships and the connections that affect my own life experience.I see their bodies, choreographies, tattoos, songs, graffiti, poetry, the colors of their hair, the piercings, words I didn’t know, incomprehensible slang words, unnamed realities.
I listen to and I photograph 16 to 19 year-old teenagers from different contexts in Belo Horizonte (cis women, trans women and non-binary people) that since very early in their lives have been marked by going against the flow of standards defined by our society, be it through their bodies, sexuality, gender, race, family relations or all of that together. This generation has their adolescence affected by pressure and ambiguity of self-expression via social media. Real or fake names, truth X lie, Selfies x Anonymity. They are growing in times when we watch the collapse of the binary building (man x woman, feminine x masculine, heterosexual x homosexual .
For this garden of duality and indefinitions, I create portraits that appear next to what would be an attempt at representation – (almost) undefined animated gifs in pixels that become the performance itself.
This work brings together bits of deconstructed images that move in a continuous flow and portraits that face me. I’m rocked by the teenage voices that, as protagonists of their own stories remind be of constant becomings.
If it’s through encountering the new and the differences that our daily deconstructions take place, I want to rebuild on those ruins.
Márcia Charnizon
Cast and Crew:
Creation, research, photography, production and website design – Márcia Charnizon
Soundtrack and sound effects – – Pedro Charnizon
Production Assistant – Pedro Moreira
Website developer – Paula Oliveira
Brazilian Sign Language and description – Marcella Sousa
Press Assistant -Luciana d’Anunciação
English Version – Carol Romano
Participants:
Ali Villanueva
Ana Jardim
Anahi Nascimento
Bianca Stefane Pereira
Bruna Heloisa Ferreira Gomes
Clara Souza Catarina
Débora Zilah A. Spósito
Enoy Ferreira Maciel Eterovick
Layla Roberta Passos
Maria Barra
Maria Clara Ottoni
Max Bagno
Sabrina Soares
Sara Ribeiro Guimarães
Sophia Castro
Thalyssa Tomáz (Mt)
Teodora Velloso
All the audios, videos, poems, texts, collage, art and drawings were created by this project’s participants.
Poem by Débora Zilah Andrada Espósito/ Vento – song by Regina Souza/ Art by Enoy F. Eterovick/ Art by Sara R. Guimarães/ Art by Débora Zilah Andrada Espósito
Watch the mini-doc CAIXA DE LUZ (“Light Box”), about the creative currents of this work
Acknowledgements:
Ana Charnizon, Ricardo Rabelo, Regina Souza, Patrick Arley, Ísis Medeiros, , Mariana Tavares, Goreti O. Lopes, Paula Vaz, Juliana Caldeira Borges, Marcelo Belém, Júlia Pontés, Luis Serguilha, Babaya, Chris Barra, Coletivo Reflex, Claudio Meilman, Daniela Charnizon, Érico Vieira, Patricia Saceanu, Samuel Vieira.
To the team and all the people who are part of the gallery and have built this work with me.
“I wanted to build some ruins. Although I know that a ruin is deconstruction. My idea was to make something in the style of a hovel. Something useful to host abandonment, just like hovels do.”
(Ruin – Manoel de Barros)
For Pedro e Nina