Pivô Coaty holds the sixth Circuito Lina walk with a discussion on Salvador’s hills in literature

On August 27, Pivô presented another edition of Circuito Lina, with its sixth walk to Ladeira da Misericórdia, taking as its starting point the presence of Salvador’s hills and stairways in literature and their role in shaping imaginaries of the city. This edition brings together poet, performer, and translator Alex Simões and writer and chronicler Evanilton Gonçalves, with mediation by UFBA professor and researcher Dilton de Almeida.

The walk proposed thinking of the hills and stairways as narrated and imagined spaces, where different times, bodies, memories, and ways of life intersect. Present in literature as routes of movement, encounter, conflict, and urban transformation, they also participate in the construction of images and narratives about Salvador, revealing the city center’s social contradictions, cultural references, and forms of life.

In Em minha terra tem ladeiras (2022), poet and performer Alex Simões brings together poems that traverse different territories of Bahia. Ladeira da Montanha, Fazenda Grande do Retiro, Quilombo Rio dos Macacos, Itapuã, and Elevador Lacerda appear alongside references to figures such as Gregório de Mattos, Luís Gama, Waly Salomão, and Caetano Veloso, composing a poetic cartography that moves away from established images of the city and its landscape. His relationship with Ladeira da Misericórdia also extends to his experience at Ocupação Coaty, organized by Projeto Ativa in 2016, in which he participated as a resident artist.

Evanilton Gonçalves, in turn, published the novella Ladeira da Preguiça in 2025, built around the life of a couple who make a living from informal work in downtown Salvador. While she uses the waters of Fonte da Preguiça to wash cars, he walks the streets collecting materials to sell at a scrapyard. Ladeira da Preguiça and its surroundings thus emerge through the everyday practices of their inhabitants and the contradictions of a city simultaneously shaped by tourism and persistent forms of life and work.

By bringing two contemporary forms of writing produced from within the city into dialogue, the walk proposes experiencing the hills and stairways as narrated, lived, and imagined territories. Literature thus approaches urban experience not only as a record of its landscapes and transformations, but also as a means of producing and reinventing the territory itself.

Through the encounter between the guests and the narratives mediated by Dilton de Almeida, Ladeira da Misericórdia becomes a point of connection between literature and the city, inviting reflection on how territory is written, remembered, and reinvented through words.

Circuito Lina, a walking program along Ladeira da Misericórdia that approaches the area from different perspectives and experiences, is part of the activation process of Pivô Coaty and of Centro-Vivo: Arquivo e Laboratório de Investigação da Ladeira da Misericórdia. The project is an initiative of Pivô in partnership with the City of Salvador, with institutional support from the Faculty of Architecture of the Federal University of Bahia (FAUFBA) and Hartwig Art Foundation.

With each walk, different guests lead the visit, sharing research, experiences, and readings of the territory through the lenses of architecture, urban history, cultural practices, memory, and the relationships built with Ladeira da Misericórdia.

Photos: Patricia Almeida