A Torre da Derrota

(The tower of defeat)


One channel video

This work portraits a long and constant walk in direction to one of Brazilian modern architecture icons, the National Congress of Brazil, built together with the Capital, Brasilia and designed by Oscar Niemeyer.

The video is done with a special effect technique where the focus is always kept on the towers, like a constant look, while everything around keeps moving and approaching up until arriving to the message on what ideals Niemeyer projected the city with - ideals that are in striking contrast with the absolute paradise for corruption and segregation that the Country became nowadays. This building, with its remarkable shape and symbolism, is very representative of the present moment, as Brazil dives in a

new political and identity crisis, arguably the toughest of its history.

Quoting Niemeyer :
“On the day of the inauguration, with the President of the Republic, the generals in their uniforms, deputies, all state of cials and their high society ladies in their best jewels, everything has changed, the magic has been broken in a single thud. 
Four years after the inauguration of Brasilia, a military coup overthrew the government, and the dictatorship soon comforted itself at a distance from the capital of the population centres of Brazil.”

Socio-political development takes a circular course, mirror themselves, become a close palindrome.

A Torre da Derrota