Érica Malunginho (Part 2)
Source: Alesp via Creative Commons BY (photographer unidentified) <https://www.al.sp.gov.br/deputado/?matricula=300625>
Continuing the fascinating 2017 article “A mulher que pariu um quilombo urbano” by Juliana Gonçalves in Trip:
In São Paulo, Erica faced the conflict of being black, a woman, trans, and from the Northeast. Here, she reports that she saw the cruelest facets of discrimination. “With its large size, the city hides a sophisticated perversity under its robes, which results in physical and symbolic violence, blocking people’s healthy development. But I was never afraid, I always had strength for the fight,” she asserts.
An activist, educator, and artist, she worked in education for many years, training teachers in topics related to art, culture, and politics. She also produced works of photography, performance, writing, and drawing. Her academic career is described without citing names of institutions, something done consciously. “I don’t cite names, because I don’t want them to steal the bonus of my existence. They are not the ones who certify me, but rather the human relationships that taught me to move through a stratified, transphobic, racist, and homophobic society.”
That relationship with territories marks this personality of this figure who moves through many spaces, and who by having her racial and ethnic consciousness at the center of her existence, was able to give birth to an urban quilombo in the center of São Paulo, in April 2016.
Thus, Erica transformed her art studio, in the Campos Eliseos neighborhood, into the cultural and political center Aparelha Luzia, understood by its patrons as one of the most important spaces of black resistance in the city. Parties, courses, trainings, debates, and birthdays happen there. It’s a place where “black women and men reconnect with their equals, reorganize the collectivity in a broad dimension and learn to be together,” she explains.
The objective was to organize meetings to disseminate the artistic and political production of negritude. Aparelha Luzia is a space of creation, mediation, and circulation of black arts, in addition to being a point of socializing and affection.
Aparelha’s importance stems precisely from the multiplicity of publics that move through there. They are civil construction workers, people experiencing houselessness, intellectuals, artists, activists, community members from African countries, professionals from the areas of health, education, and fashion, among others.
To be continued….