Making use of performance, video and photography, the practice of Rafael Bqueer (Belém, 1992) conjures an often transversal investigation of themes such as Afro-fictions, gender and mass visual culture. His work has the strong mark of Pará’s drag culture – a scene that he has been part of since his youth – and an enthusiasm for devouring foreign symbols, from Power Rangers to Alice in Wonderland. Such devouring, thought from a perspective of the North of the country, gains even more complex nuances in a discussion about the contradictions of the ideia of tropicality.

In his proposition for the current edition of Pivô Satellite, Bqueer presents Tecnocabana (Tecno-Hut), a project that consists of a virtual sound system inspired by the audio equipment typically used in tecno-brega parties in the outskirts of the main cities of Pará. The title refers to Cabanagem (“cabana” in Portuguese means hut), which was a popular uprising that took place between 1835 and 1840 in Belém, led by local indigenous and black people living in precarious conditions during the Regency period and demanding better living conditions.

Bqueer’s proposition intersects different temporalities as a way of adding complexity to the often archetypal representations of the Amazon in the contemporary art field. For Bqueer, the Amazon is the stage for narrative and critical disputes that are crucial to understanding Brazil today. Also at play is an interesting use of the Pivô Satellite platform’s project dimension. Bqueer’s Tecno-Hut has been developed as a virtual sculpture and project, which we hope one day will occupy the physical space in all its exuberance.