Bia, Giovana more goodbyes

I was continuing the beginning of Goodbyes- Immediately with these two women I want to be laughing, and then I am, we all are. I have a buoyancy around them. Peanuts, acarajé, beer, coke and abarrá we littered the table and filled our bellies at dusk in Rio Vermelho, perto de Barraca da Dinha. This time too many itinerant snack sellers and beggars came looking for resources, a handout or a point of sale. The only thing missing was Paulo, another designer and Bia’s colleague. He couldn’t get a babysitter. We ended up leaving to see an opening of their friend, a former Sacatar fellow inside the Farol de Barra.


Their friend’s work was focused on the sea environment, garbage and recycling. She swam, dove and collected waste left behind. The dives yielded glass, wood and metal. Swimming and scavenging brought the plastic detritus that she had carefully packaged and labeled as if it were a consumer item for sale. The name of each item was the same {Dev} olvido do mar. Simply and effectively executed, the juxtaposition of saturated rainbow colors and consumerist packaging targeted our disposable culture and our lack of reverence for the sea ; a resource and home to Orixa.


Looking for a spot for xixi , I found the terrace or I guess cannon battery that overooked the corner of the Bay, (Baia do Todos Santos) and the Atlantic. The imposing Farol light pulsed red and white beams into the water and the four turrets, now chained must have been former lookout or sniper spots. I made some murky pictures in this inky night occasionally interrupted by floodlights highlighting the lighthouse as an icon.


Getting out of the Jeep at Eneida’s where we were crashing to say goodbye back in Rio V. wasn’t difficult, but it tugged at me. In that moment of transition these two women had made themselves available to Michele and me. Bia and Michele sketched dreams of future collaborations. We all quickly learned to have fun together, enjoying each other despite a lack of shared language.