In her artistic practice, which mainly involves the use of video and installation, Virginia de Medeiros appropriates documentary strategies to re-think the modes of interpreting the other by using anthropological and ethnographic research strategies. She participated in the 32nd Panorama de Arte Brasileira, at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (2011); in the 2nd Luanda Triennial (2010), in Angola; and in the 27th São Paulo Biennial (2006). In 2009, she was awarded the Rede Nacional Funarte Artes Visuais prize (2009). She lives and works in São Paulo.
2015, video, 7’
courtesy of Galeria Nara Roesler and the artist
2015, digital print on methacrylate, 20x30cm
courtesy of Galeria Nara Roesler and the artist
2015, digital print on methacrylate, 58x88cm
courtesy of Galeria Nara Roesler and the artist
Shot during the final stages of the most recent “revitalization” of Mauá Square, in Rio de Janeiro’s port area, Cais do corpo is a sort of record of the last days of the prostitution universe that existed in the area since the 1930s. Critically addressing urban design projects that result in the gentrification of di erent areas of cities with no social inclusion plan, the work considers the performativity of the bodies of prostitutes as a social and political practice in which eroticism and resistance are, sometimes plainly, combined. Two images—a video frame and the register of its first projection, on the building A Noite, in Praça Mauá—complement the work.
