Caminhada pelo centro / a walk in the city center

Idealizada pelo curador Thiago Carrapatoso, a caminhada pelo Centro de São Paulo teve como principal objetivo retomar a história LGBT+ na região através do compartilhamento de experiências pessoais. É valendo-se das vidas reais de moradores locais que se pode entender e definir as referências culturais LGBT+ que estão caindo no esquecimento por causa do interesse crescente do mercado imobiliário na região. O ator Paulo Goya conduziu a caminhada e contou suas experiências, indicando os lugares que frequentava no passado e mostrando a relação intrínseca entre o centro da cidade e a história LGBT+. A Rede Paulista de Educação Patrimonial (Repep) participou explicando sua nova metodologia para proteger o território da especulação imobiliária através da cultura imaterial.

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Muitas coisas nesse mundo não têm nome; e muitas coisas, mesmo que tenham nome, nunca foram definidas. Uma delas é a sensibilidade – inequivocamente moderna, uma forma de satisfação, mas não idêntica à satisfação – conhecida pela expressão esotérica Camp.

Notas sobre “Camp” – Susan Sontag, 1964

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[…] é tributária dessa forma de sensibilidade a ideia da antiga retórica, segundo a qual é o corpo da pessoa amada que representa o local de memória mais ativo possível. É Camp a tendência em preferir o local da memória à sua referência.

Segundo Manifesto Camp – Patrick Mauriès, 1978

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“Caminhar, andar, ser um pedestre, os devaneios dos caminhantes solitários”.

Sinto hoje uma necessidade imperiosa de compartilhar paisagens, pois estou certo, em primeiro lugar, de que as paisagens existem dentro, e não fora de nós; em segundo, porque as paisagens compartilhadas são a única forma

de construirmos cidades neste século XXI. Construí-las através de falas e imagens com movimentos e nos servindo de performances mais do que de grandes projetos de ditas políticas que não contemplam a Política, necessidade de fazermos o diálogo. É pelo toque, pelo gesto amoroso, pelo afago e pelo cafuné. Contar para e caminhar com aqueles com os quais hoje, neste novembro de 2015, convivo nesta São Paulo só pode fazer dela a cidade onde todos os conflitos poderão se manifestar com todas as suas liberdades, formas de expressão e sensibilidades. Eu também sempre vou preferir o local da memória à sua referência. Se ser queer é ser estranho, então sou estranho. No ninho, pra começar. E só e tão somente lá, quando for enterrado, é que poderei afirmar ter finalmente entendido tudo. Alguém sempre terá que ficar para contar a história, e meu sonho é expirar nos braços do meu Horácio amado. De preferência ambos nus, claro!

Hamlet
Se você é um homem;
Me dá essa taça. Larga-a, pelos céus, deixa comigo!
Ó Deus, Horácio, que nome execrado
Viverá depois de mim, se as coisas ficarem assim ignoradas! Se jamais me tiveste em teu coração
Renuncia ainda um tempo à bem-aventurança,
E mantém teu sopro de vida neste mundo de dor
Pra contar minha istória.
[…]
Não vou viver pra ouvir notícias da Inglaterra;
Mas profetizo que a eleição recairá em Fortinbrás.
Ele tem o meu voto agonizante;
Diz-lhe isso e fala de todas as ocorrências,
Maiores e menores, que me impulsionaram a…
O resto é silêncio.
Morre.

Hamlet – William Shakespeare, 1603, tradução de Millôr Fernandes Paulo Antonio Guedes (Paulo Goya)

a walk in the city center

Conceptualized by the curator Thiago Carrapatoso, the walk in the Center of São Paulo has the main goal of recapturing the LGBT+ history in the area through sharing personal experiences. It is by using the real lives of local residents that it becomes possible to realize and define the LGBT+ cultural references that are in the process of being forgotten due to the increasing interest of the real estate market in the region. The actor Paulo Goya will lead the walk and share his experiences indicating the places he visited in the past and showing the intrinsic relation between the Center of the city and the LGBT+ history. The São Paulo Network of Heritage Education (Repep) will explain the new methodology to protect a territory from the real estate speculation through immaterial culture.

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Many things in the world have not been named; and many things, even if they have been named, have never been des- cribed. One of these is the sensibility unmistakably modern, a variant of sophistication but hardly identical with it that goes by the cult name of “Camp.”

Notes on “Camp” – Susan Sontag, 1964

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[…] such form of sensibility is tributary to the ancient rhetoric, according to which the body of the loved one represents the most active spot of memory. Camp is the trend to prefer the place of a memory rather than its reference.

Second Manifesto of Camp – Patrick Mauriès, 1978

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“To walk, to wander, be a pedestrian, the reveries of lonely walkers.”

Today I feel a pressing need of sharing landscapes, for I am sure that, firstly, landscapes exist within, and not outside ourselves; secondly, because shared landscapes are the
only way of building cities in the 21st century. To build them through talks and moving images, working more as perfor- mances than major projects of so-called policies that do not contemplate Politics itself, the need to establish a dialog. By means of touch, loving gestures, fondling and cafunés. To
tell for and walk along with those with whom, on this very November 2015, I live along in São Paulo, is the only way to turn it into the city where all conflicts can become manifest in all their freedom, sensibility and forms of expression. I will also – and ever – prefer a spot of memory rather than its ref- erence. If being queer means to be weird, then I am a cuckoo in the nest, to begin with. It is then and solely there, when I’m buried, that I will be able to finally assert having understood
it all. Someone always needs to remain to tell the history,
and my dream is to expire in the arms of my beloved Horatio. Both preferably naked, for sure!

Hamlet
As thou’rt a man,
Give me the cup: let go; by heaven, I’ll have’t.
O good Horatio, what a wounded name,
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me! If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,

To tell my story.
[…]
I cannot live to hear the news from England; But I do prophesy the election lights
On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice;
So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less, Which have solicited. The rest is silence.
Dies.

Hamlet – William Shakespeare, 1603
Paulo Antonio Guedes (Paulo Goya)

São Paulo is a remarkable city, and its center has a strong history of being a refuge for the LGBT+ community despite mainstream Brazilian culture’s bias toward being extremely patriarchal and severely segregated. The city’s marginal communities are often relegated to neighborhoods on the outskirts, places the white elite can easily avoid.

Since the post-war era, the center of the city, the area where most cultural activities like cinema, bars, and libraries were, sheltered the LGBT+ community. The two most important landmarks in this history may be the Largo do Arouche and Praça da República, the former being the place for rich, white gay men; the latter for male prostitutes, transvestites, and poorer gays. And both being a place to gather and find most of the city’s intellectuals participating in the vibrant nightlife of that time.

The problem is that this history is commonly forgotten and misunderstood even though it is still possible to see the community expressing itself freely in these areas — in a different way from the 1950s and the 1960s — but it is hard to understand why they gather in that specific place.

Because of my work with Rede Paulista de Educação Patrimonial (Paulista Network for Heritage Education), an organization that has created a collaborative inventory of the communities that live close to the Minhocão viaduct that crosses the center, I along with my colleagues became increasingly concerned about how Brazilians learn about this history. How do we remind ourselves and other people of the genesis of this social use of territory? For this reason, we invited the actor Paulo Goya, who experienced the place mainly during the 1960s, to share his memories and explain a little more about the dynamic of the area. As part of the “Cidade / City” cycle of activities, Paulo conducted “A walk in the center”, sharing his love affairs and some of the theories published in that time, such as Susan Sontag’s essay “Notes on Camp.”

The walk lasted almost three hours, but you can see a small teaser about it in the video below.