C&AL: Your audiovisual works, Divina e Restituição, show snippets of lives of members of the LGBTQIAP+ community. These bodies are protagonists in a universe of holiness that is created by you. You make your desire to sanctify these bodies very evident in these works. Can you describe that process?
Ode: Restituição, a film shown at SHOWstudio and that was part of the Radical Intimacies exhibition at Instituto Tomie Ohtake, in São Paulo, in 2022, was left intentionally with no dialogues, since “trasvesti” does not translate. It consists of everyday sounds, like a soccer game vignette, the sound of a propane delivery vehicle and songs I used to hear playing at my neighbors’ houses, an acoustic version of the song Novo Mundo, by Yndi, a French-Brazilian friend, and by Wonder, by the eternal Cláudia Wonder, who repeats in French that everything will be fine.
And over the course of the three chapters of Divina – which allude to the Biblical verse John 14:6, The Way, The Truth, and The Life – I present Marcinha do Corintho in a way that goes against the usual rhetoric associated with trans women. I covered her with iconography of saints and Pomba Giras. I wanted to explore a different narrative: to show that trans women can be alive, grow old, leave a legacy, be victorious and be seen as sacred. It’s the message I want not only Divina, but also my latest works to transmit. I think the possibility of dreaming fertilizes life and avenges death.
Ode was born in the city of Itajubá, Serra da Mantiqueira (Minas Gerais). She is a curator, writer, and self-taught multidisciplinary artist. In her work, she brings a caring and sanctified perspective to the bodies of her companions.
Daiely Gonçalves is a Brazilian artist, teacher, and researcher. She articulates narratives against colonies, launched on the representation of body and territory in themes of race and gender.
Translation: Zoë Perry