Art and Resistance: Documenting Queer Life in Rio
Rodrigo Oliveira’s photography celebrates the LGBT community’s free expression at a time of increased hostility in Brazil.
By Anna Jean Kaiser
Under a drizzle on a Saturday night in downtown Rio de Janeiro, in the weeks before Covid-19 and social distancing changed everything, street vendors gathered to sell to partygoers outside an open-air parking lot surrounded by warehouses and empty lots.
In this unassuming venue, behind metal doors, an underground rave frequented by Rio’s LGBT community was starting to kick off. DJs spun on a makeshift stage surrounded by speakers and covered with a black tarp, with red light and smoke enveloping them. Ravers ranging from teens to people in their mid-40s wore everything from shorts and T-shirts to glittery Carnival-inspired costumes, a nod to the city’s most famous party.
The steel skeletons of old buildings lay bare to the north side of the lot, and to the west, Carnival floats — castles, giant feather headdresses, and a green monster — poked up from behind a wall to a neighboring warehouse.
Dressed in a red sleeveless shirt with dangling earrings, Rodrigo Oliveira nodded to the beat while prepping his camera. The 28-year-old photographer documents the experience of queer people of color in Rio’s slums and poor peripheries at a time when Brazil’s LGBT community faces increasing discrimination and hardship because of an intolerant government.
“We’re currently living in a country where most people don’t accept us LGBT people, so we need to show we love each other,” he says. “These parties have a post-apocalyptic energy. Society can be so cruel to us, and these kinds of grungy parties make us feel like we’re no longer there.”
Rodrigo grew up on the far outskirts of western Rio de Janeiro in Barra de Guaratiba, which is located near the beach and untamed jungle many miles from the urban coastline of Ipanema and the city’s downtown skyscrapers. He was first drawn to photography as he explored the natural beauty around his peripheral neighborhood.
Though he was raised within the limits of a city of more than six million people, it was only when Rodrigo studied abroad in Melbourne, Australia, that he first experienced daily life in a dense urban setting. A stint that followed as a student au pair in Germany prompted a period of self-reflection.
“It was the first time I saw myself as African,” he says. “I began to think more about my mixed-race roots and belonging to the LGBT community.”
Rodrigo returned to Brazil in 2018 amid the presidential rise of Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right former army captain who has described himself as a “proud homophobe” and once said that he’d rather have a dead son than a gay son. Though he toned down his homophobic rhetoric while running for president, many of his supporters amplified it through graffiti and messaging that threatened violence against nonheterosexuals.
“It’s important for us to have a culture and movement where we fight back.”
The country’s disturbing political environment was aggressively marginalizing minorities, and Rodrigo found himself documenting these communities through his creative work. “LGBT people, people of color, and people from the peripheries — this is me,” he says.
At home, Oliveira has struggled with his family’s conservative views. Between incendiary content on social networks and evangelical television, he says that they absorb homophobic messages and project them onto him. His mother is caught in the middle.
“She doesn’t want to be intolerant, but she says she’s afraid about what it’s like out there for me and says she doesn’t want me to make myself an easy target,” he shares. “She sees the way people look at me.”
A 2019 study that measured violence against LGBT people in Brazil during and after Bolsonaro’s 2018 victory found that 51 percent of interviewees had suffered some kind of violence since the election, and 92.5 percent said they thought there was an escalation of violence against the LGBT community since the election.
Rodrigo and his family still live in Guaratiba, which is a predominantly conservative and traditional neighborhood. As a resident with deep ties to the area, he feels accepted there but generally isn’t comfortable having LGBT friends visit. In other parts of Rio, it’s a different story. “Our art and resistance is happening underground,” Rodrigo says.
“In these LGBT spaces, you can see how free people feel.”
Most of the events he photographs are in downtown Rio, the city’s gritty, bohemian center. The metropolitan area sprawls for many miles outside the city center. (Rodrigo took two buses, the metro, and a taxi in order to arrive at tonight’s rave.) The downtown area’s decent public transit links and admission that’s often free make this loose network of LGBT-friendly parties and raves accessible and inclusive.
Rodrigo’s project features portraits of people at these events. He attends with his partner and other friends, dancing while scoping for potential subjects.
“It’s personal for me, and I’m learning a lot about myself,” he explains. “I started to question some of my own heteronormative ways and began embracing my feminine side after coming to these LGBT parties.”
“So much photography and storytelling about the LGBT community, especially trans and nonbinary people, is so sad and focuses on the struggle, but often leaves the joy and happy part out,” he says. “In these LGBT spaces, you can see how free people feel. They’re confident and want to be photographed.”
Oten, a 21-year-old partygoer, leaned back and draped his arms across a metal fence, gazing into the camera for a portrait.
“This is a space of empowerment where we can regain our self-esteem, find people like us, and enjoy ourselves with dignity,” says Oten. “It’s important for us to have a culture and movement where we fight back.”
Oten remembers freezing with fear upon Bolsonaro’s electoral victory as he heard his neighbors celebrating, cheering, and even setting off fireworks. “Those are my neighbors. The people who live right next to me all of a sudden felt like a threat,” he says. “Homophobia is now being validated by Bolsonaro. There’s a presidential voice saying that this is OK.”
This sense of unease underscores the importance of safe spaces where people of different sexualities and gender identities are free to express themselves and connect with others. And it shows just how special Rodrigo’s images are as a representation of these people.
“At the beginning, everyone was scared of Bolsonaro — his politics represent anger and hatred and people feel emboldened by his homophobic rhetoric — but the LGBT community has come together like never before,” says Rodrigo. “The positive side is we’re more united and courageous.”
“Our collectiveness has definitely increased,” he adds. “It’s at a point where our situation with society is so bad, we might as well just be who we are and do what we want.”
See more of Rodrigo Oliveira’s work on VSCO.
