Manauara Clandestina: Transcladestina 3020: Curatorial Text: Aldones Nino

Within this movement, “to transmute” does not simply mean to change the form of things, but to displace their destinies. The exhibition materializes this operation through upcycling—not as an aesthetic of recycling nor as a morality of reuse, but as a political gesture of reorientation. What the world-system names as residue, excess, or waste reappears here as matter of continuity. Upcycling functions as an everyday alchemy: a practice that transforms what is rejected into support for new forms of existence. By refusing disposal, it challenges the myth of linear progress and reveals other possible temporalities and values embedded in materials. In the migratory context, this operation gains urgency: in the face of scarcity, upcycling ceases to be merely a critical gesture and becomes a vital tool for survival, revealing that the contestation of hegemonic models is often already inscribed in the practices of those who live clandestinely.

The proposal extends beyond the transmutation of discarded matter that defines upcycling. It operates on a deeper level, concerned with how perception is constructed, how desires are shaped, and how the world is experienced. For this reason, the works invite us to exercise the perception of possible worlds through the lens of love and communal connection. The core of the matter does not lie in the conception of an immaculate utopia, but in sustaining the capacity to imagine alternatives precisely at the moment when reality insists on overriding the realm of dreams.

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TRANSCLANDESTINA 3020 unfolds as an express train to the future, functioning as a concrete device of passage to cities where trans life flourishes. More than an abstract promise, the passport to this express is an essential artifact that guarantees movement in a world that seeks to impede it. Through it, Íca Nishimoto gains the possibility of transiting between worlds, escaping regimes of violence and precarity toward an “elsewhere.”

The Polaroids produced during the creative process underscore the profoundly relational nature of this work. Far from serving as neutral records, they form an archive of presences and bonds: fragments of shared time in which the work is constructed in the “in-between”—through alliances, frictions, and, above all, gestures of care that sustain continuity. Within this constellation also appear the forces that support Manauara’s crossing: the presence of her biological parents, the companionship of her husband, Bernardo Bessa, and the network of affections forged with sister-friends such as Camila Ribeiro and Íca Nishimoto.

By renaming the gallery as the “Ministry of Trans-Immigration,” the exhibition space becomes a site of transit and welcome. The technique of transmutation is central to the textile installations, where high-visibility uniforms and diverse sewn materials convert discard into support for persistence—stitching operates as repair, protection, and a communal gesture. Through these acts of sewing and material transformation, the body of work conceives migration as a collective practice that reaffirms life as a network and a future in constant construction.

Manauara Clandestina’s research is grounded in the premise that survival extends beyond merely resisting collapse; it involves actively forging new paths from within it. The work focuses on the production of networks, gestures, and alliances that sustain life amid the fissures of the prevailing system. What is essential to life remains at the center: love manifested through communal articulations, solidarity inscribed in transformed uniforms, and the continuous act of opening passages where there was once only interdiction.

Aldones Nino