tiago aires lÊdo
A CASA DE LÊDO The days turned me inside out and un-turned me, the hours braided me to untidy me. The more I searched myself in secret mirrors, the more I lost myself. -- Lya Luft, em O Tempo é um Rio que Corre
For the third cycle of the artist residency program No Entulho, by ArtWorks, organized in partnership with Pedreira, between September 15 and November 15, 2021, the transmasculine artist Tiago Aires Lêdo took as a starting point in his research a written and unsent letter by himself and Tiago Colaço in 2018 to the Portuguese Communist Party requesting their disaffiliation on account of “the [unethical] position taken by the PCP in relation to the bill drawn up by the PAN [People-Animals-Nature] party which sought the abolition of bullfighting”. Such written libel by Lêdo and Colaço marks, thus, the decolonial commitment of each one by suggesting that the affectionate populations that “were left without this activity are not restreined from developing any other that doesn’t include the unnecessary aggression to an animal” and further points out that “the bench of the Portuguese Communist Party had the unique opportunity to be on the side of the workers and the animals, but chose one of the two”. That said, in the course of the letter of Lêdo and Colaço, the masculinity of the “comrades and friends” emerges, by their decisions told to us, as a political cartography and practice of government, since these political categories that organize the interior of our public life are masculine categories. Thus, the reason of the state is configured on the basis of a masculine grammar and embodied as a representation of masculinities, and, therefore, this masculine bodly imaginary is usually associated with forms of power and action, above all codified by the language of war, of weapons and of violence. When accompanying Lêdo in his artistic residence, I knew that the “objectified and victimized [in a state of aggressiveness, meek] bull “ described in his letter served as a mirroring of himself before the world and this vision came to transmute during the research process into one of the constituent mythemes of the Labyrinth myth, the Minotaur, só that Lêdo could verify the different existing forms of orga-
nizing the experience in the world of what is conventionally called man and, finally, to explore a process of fictional production of himself, his gender and his male body. As a transfeminist, I belive it is important to underline the understanding that CIScolonial category man has been consolidated as a historical process, or better, as a process of historical fabulation, which means to say that there is nothing essential about being a man, since there is nothing from the point of view of biology that constitutes the social practice of masculinity as well as the much talked testosterone. Moreover, it is important to mention that the sciences are cultural activities, because nature is the creation of culture, whose clues to its creation have been erased and, therefore, it seems that nature is always there. In view of this, testosterone composes a type of body which is conventionally a male body, but which may be constitutive of other types of bodies in other societies, i.e., these bodies may not be the same as the male body we understand, as well as may not occupy the same social place in what we think of as male body. For example, in “Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies” (1935), the result of fieldwork in Papua New Guinea, the anthropologist Margaret Mead shows other ways of organising and inscribing corporeality in the world, that is not mediated by a CIScolonial constitution of biological sex that responds to a gender ordering that is binary, and not only binary, but also CISheterosexual, white, static, monogamous and Christian, since it will think precisely of penis and vagina as complementary opposites. Therefore, by entering the space of a factory - a place also associated with the western repertoire of images of masculinity -, the artist Tiago Aires Lêdo, in his experimental tragic-performative minotauric narrative, challenges this world with his own body, thus generating a horizontalized desire to speak for himself when presenting his trans re-
A CASA DE LÊDO
interpretation of the Minotaur. In this way, despite having learned with Ariadne-Hilda to tread his own path by untangling the threads that disturb him so much, as can be seen in his action, Minotauro-Lêdo decomposes his whole process and presents it in an open way similar to the writing of a durational diary, where he not only narrates the right to do with his own body what he wants, but also invites people to enter his Labyrinth to lose themselves and find themselves in it.
Hilda de Paulo
artist and curator travesti
O Diildotauro de Lide Tiago Aires Lêdo presents the work developed during cycle #03 of the Art Residencies No Entulho with a performatic installation at Pedreira. Lasting an hour, during which the public can enter at any time, it will be followed by a talk between the artist in residency and curator and artist Hilda de Paulo. Thrusday, 11 of November, 2021 Performatic Installation – 21h00/22h00 Talk with Hilda de Paulo – 22h15/23h00 Pedreira - Rua Pinto Bessa 290, Porto A project by ArtWorks Program Partners Pedreira Home by Ronan Mckenzie No Entulho Partners: CVR (Centro para Valorização de Resíduos) Damel PIEP (Centro deInovação em Engenharia de Polímeros) Recivalongo Veios de Madeira Vitrus W2V Institutional Partners Câmara Municipal Póvoa Varzim Smart Waste Escola das Artes - Universidade Católica Production ArtWorks Financing Ecosteel SA A special thanks to: Tomás Paula Marques (creation support) Joana Rodrigues (sound) Maria Leite Soares (light and creation support) Teresa Antunes (light) Maria João Leite (costume design) Hilda de Paulo (creation support) Tales Frey (production support) Teatro Universitário do Porto (production support)) Residências Artísticas No Entulho (RANE) Promoted by ArtWorks, they are aimed at No Entulho Art Residencies are intended for emerging artists, with the purpose of using rubble as material for creation. Invited to think, intervene or modify these materials, the artists take advantage of the conditions existing at the ArtWorks facilities, thus bringing the creation process closer to the operational procedures and resources connected with the organisation’s day-to-day activities. In this context, unique workshop conditions are provided, combining two production processes the artistic and the factory - and the experience of a place that is characterized by its rusticity and distinct industries. Cycle # 03 of the No Entulho Art Residencies was promoted in partnership with Pedreira and HOME by Ronan Mckenzie, invited to launch an open call and select each one artist. Pedreira is an independent platform for artistic residencies and experimental educational servisse. It promoted a call aimed at non-binary and transgender artists based in Portugal and selected, toguether with artis Odete, Tiago Aries Lêdo. Home by Ronan Mckenzie is a multifunctional creative venue based in London dedicated to the presentation of exhibitions and extended artistic programs. It promoted a call oriented for black women artists based in the UK from which it has selected Tyreis Holder.
www.noentulho.pt