TRANSCLANDESTINA 3020 (2025) results from an accumulation of stories and processes that evoke multiple languages, in which Manauara Clandestina has been developing her research over the past years. Textiles, video, photography, and performance compose this multidisciplinary work, marked by prophetic desires originating from her neo-Pentecostal formation, yet refusing apocalyptic fatalism. For Manauara, germinating new paths is the only viable way out of a present permeated by violence. Her practice transcends this condition, creating space for possibilities that persist in existing. Although present throughout human history, transvestite ancestries rarely receive prominence in the usual technologies of memory, which are traditionally centered on cis-heteronormative trajectories. Recognizing herself as part of a forthcoming past, Manauara projects the future as a platform for enunciation where, even under constant persecution, escape routes and unexpected alliances continue to determine possibilities for existence.
The desire for escape arises precisely from the imagination that allows us to visualize other possible realities. The work is already in motion; its presence at the 36th Bienal de São Paulo invites us to embrace the many Ícas that already exist and those yet to come. Like queen ants and fig wasps, who shed their wings to ensure the continuity of life, we, too, are urged to rethink the desire for flight, a persistent metaphor for progress. Flying is not imperative when feet are firmly planted on the ground. Even without wings, flight persists as a gesture of moving forward.
Since arriving in São Paulo – without the privileges to ease her transition – Manauara has always activated her creativity to build routes capable of taking her beyond the reality imposed as impossible. Her migration became a powerful force, opening doors to new worlds and expanding her practice and communication. Offering a thousand-year vision ahead, her inner journey asserts that the future does not need to be idyllic, but must be grounded in solidarity and sharing. Clandestinas’ new work, TRANSCLANDESTINA 3020, commissioned for the 36th Bienal, is a multidisciplinary project. It centers on the collaboration of a diverse group of practitioners from fashion, music, and film. Together, they created a new clothing line from transformed and repurposed worker’s uniforms, a fashion show, and a sculptural installation of the garments, culminating in a film that documents the entire creative process in the group. Her collaborators and protagonists appear as archetypes, evoking collaboration as a fundamental technology to surpass linear temporality and make all transitions possible.
