VIRGINIA DE MEDEIROS
b. 1973, BrazilThe work of Virginia de Medeiros centers on documentary strategies, as a means to transgress mainstream accounts and question the boundaries between reality and fiction. The artist deals with three themes within the field of art and documentary: dislocation, participation, and fabulation.
Sérgio e Simone (2009/2014), selected for the 31st São Paulo Biennial (2014) and recipient of the ICCo residency award at the 18th Festival de Arte Contemporânea Videobrasil, documents the life of Simone, a transvestite who lived at the Ladeira da Montanha, in Salvador, capital of Bahia. Like most the residents of the borough, Simone was an avid drug user. However, after a crack overdose, she suffers a mystical delirium causing her to “find God” and circumvent death. From this episode onwards Simone abandons her identity as a transvestite, retakes her baptism name of Sérgio and becomes an avid evangelical preacher in a delirious quest to save humanity.
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