Loreta Valadares, Anna Maria Maiolino and resistance to the brazilian military dictatorship: a “testimonial content” and gender perspective

Abstract

This paper aims to contrastively analyze the poems “Onde estão os homens?” (1966) and “às companheiras e companheiros” (1995) by Loreta Valadares and the photographs “Por um fio” (1976) and “Entrevidas” (1981) by Anna Maria Maiolino, to verify how both represented the repression that occurred during the period of the Brazilian civil-military dictatorship (1964-1985). Through the discussion, it is possible to see that the artists, further from representing the State's oppression, emphasized the authoritarianism and the “male domination” that were imposed even in militant groups and in the family structure itself. In this sense, the works mark the contestation, the representation of the feminine, the silence, and the patriarchal heritage crossed by the “testimonial content”. This study is justified due to "the national Alzheimer’s disease" that plagues Brazilian society and drives the need to recover works and artists representing the exception period.