Luiz Roque
Screening:
Insomnia

Insomnia is a screening of moving image works that takes Luiz Roque’s short video Rio de Janeiro (2017) as a point of departure to find traces within an intergenerational lineage of videos dealing with questions of belonging, anti-colonial institutional critique and critical positions on the representation of queer bodies and desires. In Rio de Janeiro, the burning of the Museum of Modern Art in Brazil’s capital in 1978 is reimagined by Roque; performer Carol Diaz lounges listlessly, watching the museum and the canonical artwork within its walls burn in the darkness of the night. Why should she care? At the time, as a Black trans woman, she was neither represented in the collection’s holdings nor were her stories and dreams.

Rio de Janeiro and the other works in the screening, which range from 1975 to 2023 ask questions about how dominant structures of hetero-normativity and colonial power silence and (mis)represent many other voices. All together the videos reflect on and imagine queer positions throughout history, and seek alternatives through nocturnal journeys full of dreams, nightmares and hallucinations.

Running order:

Luiz Roque, Rio de Janeiro, 2017, 5 min
Leticia Parente, Preparação I, 1975, 3:30 min
Rafael França, Insônia (Insomnia), 1989, 8:30 min
Distruktur, Cat Effekt, 2011, 40 min
Michelle Handelman, LOVER HATER CUNTY INTELLECTUAL, 2019, 13 min
Tarek Lakhrissi, Coeur Brillant (Bright Heart), 2023, 14 min