Fotogalleriet
Foto: Nayara Leite
At Oslo Negativ 2024 Fotogalleriet will present the works of Nayara Leite.
“The revolution is black, trans, poor, working class and peripheral”, Erika Hilton said in an interview in 2020 when she was elected councillor to the Municipal Chamber of São Paulo. She received the most votes for any councillor in the whole of Brazil, and she was the first black travesti to be elected for this position. Two years later, she was elected to the National Congress of Brazil. Hilton is one of the politicians who have been fighting hard against the rise of the extreme right in the country, which started when Jair Bolsonaro was elected president in 2018.
After four years with Bolsonaro as its president, Brazil is still recovering from his destructive government. He didn’t get re-elected in 2022, but his supporters are continuing what he preached: hate speech, violent acts, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny and racism. Bolsonaro left a polarised country, with the extreme right feeling more powerful than ever. Luckily, we have people like Erika Hilton who are there to fight for a better, more inclusive and tolerant Brazil.
And, who knows, maybe in a few years the revolution will finally take place and we will have a black travesti as our president.
Nayara Leite (b. 1989) is a Brazilian artist and writer based in Bergen, Norway. She holds an MFA from the Bergen Art Academy and an MA in Photojournalism & Documentary Photography from the London College of Communication.
Nayara works across text, performance, analogue photography, film and installation. Through autobiographical narrative, political news, archival material and letters to close friends, she produces a portrayal of the reality in which the LGBTQ+ community lives in Brazil and in Norway. She has exhibited and/or held performances at Bergen Kunsthall, Palmera, Lydgalleriet,
Bergen Kjøtt and KODE 2 in Bergen; Preus Museum in Horten; Studio 17 in Stavanger; Nitja senter for samtidskunst in Lillestrøm; Kunstnerforbundet and Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo; and Momentum Biennale in Moss.
The exhibition is in room 11.
The Fotogalleriet Foundation is the longest-operating institution in the Nordic countries and the only kunsthalle in Norway focusing on art photography. The foundation is concerned with problematizing photographic art and visual culture production and critically contributing to discourses around current image production. At the core of its mandate, the foundation works for a more balanced representation in the art field and society through collaboration with central, socially engaged organizations.