Schoolwork

We Brazilians have experienced the reality of being governed by the extreme right and we know how dangerous and destructive this is - even for our bodies. One of the signs of this nightmare was the closure, under pressure from ultra-conservative groups, of the art and sexual diversity exhibition ‘Queermuseu’ in 2017 in Porto Alegre. In 2018, Bolsonaro was elected president. So in 2019, as a queer person and art teacher, I was one of the organisers of Diversity Week at IFSP Registro, a federal government model school. With collective funding and volunteering, the Week was a form of protest and resistance to something that affected the diversity of our bodies. Among cultural attractions and debates on Brazilian diversity (sexual, ethnic, etc.), the Week featured the presence of indigenous people, the black movement and other social segments for discussions with the student public. I think we contributed to something. In the democratic elections of 2022, the Brazilian people removed Bolsonaro from the presidency and today he is judicially ineligible for the crimes he committed. But always ‘you have to be vigilant and strong’, as Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and Gal Costa would say.