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University of São Paulo: New space at the Ipiranga Museum presents the multiple facets of Brazil’s Independence

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Rescuing the history of the Independence of Brazil, its presence throughout the national territory and its repercussions over time is the purpose of the new exhibition at the Museu do Ipiranga, Memórias da Independência. “The idea is to show how this movement had several articulations and happened in different parts of the country”, says Jorge Cintra, professor at the museum and one of the curators of the collection on display. The show will be open to the public this Wednesday, the 25th, São Paulo’s birthday holiday, also inaugurating a new space in the museum, dedicated to temporary exhibitions, fully accessible .

Comprising around 130 items, including paintings, photographs, stamps, postcards, records, movie posters and other objects, the exhibition recalls the celebrations of this historical milestone in different moments and places in Brazil, seeking to broaden the perspectives of the visitor, explains the teacher. “To convey that Independence wasn’t just in São Paulo, on the Ipiranga stream, we thought of Brazil as a whole. We are here to tell the story, not the story of São Paulo, but a story of Brazil ”, he says. In addition to him, professors Paulo César Martins and Maria Aparecida de Menezes Borrego participated in the curatorship.

Through the study of detailed reports, seminars and books on the Independence of Brazil, a synthesis of the history of this period was made. Cintra says that each curator looked at a certain angle in this context — he, for example, worked on the journey of Dom Pedro I, from Santos to São Paulo, “going into the smallest possible detail based on the four reports of Dom Pedro’s companions”, he says. .

The records of Independence — and non-independence
The imagination of Independence spreads throughout the exhibition, which was divided into two thematic axes to facilitate the location of events in time and space. The portraits of characters highlighted for their role in this context are resumed, such as Domingos José Martins, one of the main leaders of the Pernambuco Revolution. The figure of Tiradentes, another precursor of the cause, is remembered in the work Os Mártires , by Antônio Parreiras, as a highlight of the time.

Together with the resumption of the images of the so-called heroes and protagonists of Independence, there is the presence of the critical debate related to the scenario. In this context, Brazil is freed from the institutional forces of the Portuguese Crown, but the black population continues to be enslaved and the indigenous victimized by the growing loss of their territory and culture. According to the professor, the caricatures of Angelo Agostini, an abolitionist cartoonist, are presented in the exhibition precisely to highlight this other look at the Independence of Brazil.

Jorge Cintra states that, in order to evoke political memory and bring it closer to the visitor, the exhibition is also composed of what was raised by the surroundings of Independence, for example, records of palaces and architecture, which relate to the celebrations made from of conquest. As shown in the 1922 Palácio de Festas postcard , palaces were built in Rio de Janeiro to commemorate the centenary. “It is worthwhile that these elements remain in the memory of the people, hence Memories of Independence ”, says the professor.