A Visionary Vertigo — Brazil: Never again

This exhibit presents the memory of the project titled Brazil: Never again, the most in-depth research by civil society about torture in Brazil during the civil-military dictatorship period (1964 – 1985). Produced between 1979 and 1985, the project takes its namesake from “Nunca Más”, the name eventually given to a report by Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas (CONADEP, or National Commission of Disappeared Persons) from Argentina in 1984. This initiative helped systematize and produce clandestine copies of over one million pages found in 707 processes by the High Military Court, revealing the extent of political repression in Brazil at the time.

Brazil: Never again

The history of this project and its developments is shown with video testimonials of lawyers, journalists and defenders of human rights who had remained anonymous for years: Paulo Vannuchi, Anivaldo Padilha, Ricardo Kotscho, Frei Betto, Carlos Lichtsztejn, Leda Corazza, Petrônio Pereira de Souza and Luiz Eduardo Greenhalgh, as part of the Memorial’s Regular Testimonials Registry program; and interviews with Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns, Marco Aurélio Garcia, Eny Raimundo Moreira and Luiz Carlos Sigmaringa Seixas, as part of the archives at Armazém Memória.

The archives of 707 legal processes expose the testimonies of political prisoners regarding repression, vigilance, persecution and torture by the state apparatus. Copies of this content — safeguarded in archives preserved in the US and Switzerland — were repatriated and returned to Brazil in 2011, and are currently maintained by the University of Campinas’ Arquivo Edgard Leuenroth archives.

The project received support from the World Council of Churches and the Archdiocese of São Paulo and contributions from Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns (1921 – 2016), archbishop of São Paulo, and Rev. James Wright (1927 – 1999) of the Presbyterian Mission of Central Brazil.   

In addition to the project archives, the exhibit showcases works from the Alípio Freire collection safeguarded by the Resistance Memorial. These works were created by former political prisoners such as Artur Scavone, Ângela Rocha, Rita Sipahi, Manoel Cyrillo, Sérgio Ferro, Sérgio Sister and Alípio Freire himself, during their imprisonment in São Paulo. 

The exhibit also shows works by artists like Carmela Gross, Regina Silveira, Artur Barrio, Antonio Manuel, Rubens Gerchman, Claudio Tozzi and Carlos Zílio, from the Pinacoteca Museum Archives in São Paulo, and external works by Rivane Neuenschwander, Claudio Tozzi and Carlos Zilio. Rafael Pagatini will showcase a work commissioned for the exhibit, in a 100m² mural in the outdoors area of the museum. 

There is also a focus on our present times by showing audiences the important of this subject today in the wake of sustained violence by the state against its minorities and vulnerable populations.