Cancellation of a Brazilian artist | Aleta Valente

My name is Aleta. I am a Brazilian visual artist — or at least I was until I was cancelled in September 2021. My crime? Years of work that draws from the raw, visceral experiences of being a woman in this world — the kind of experience that leaves deep scars.

I grew up on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, in Bangu, a working-class neighbourhood, in a family that invested everything they had in my education, knowing I would have nothing else as an inheritance. I hid my teenage pregnancy for five months. Along with my belly, my shame grew—shame at being the neighbour, the cousin, or the school friend who got pregnant and ruined her life so early, disappointing the family that had invested so much in a future meant to emancipate me. A child was considered the evidence of a sexual act, the proof of a crime. And pregnancy? A just punishment. Life imprisonment.

I was always encouraged to study, but studying art happened by accident. I chose that university course because it was devalued and low competition. I wanted to study something “more serious” but to be admitted to such courses, I needed good grades in the entry exam. The risk of not getting in while pregnant meant I could be trapped in a domestic life. Going to university was the only way to escape the abyss that widened every day between me and my future. There were two exams, theoretical and practical. For the first, I was eight and a half months pregnant; for the second, my new-born daughter waited outside the exam room to be breastfed. When I entered the School of Fine Arts at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro at 18, I was already a mother.

During college, other experiences constantly reminded me of the meaning of the word woman. My breasts leaked milk during classes, my nights were sleepless, divided between taking care of my daughter and finishing college projects. Balancing motherhood and academic demands were a challenge. I had never had problems with classes before, but at university I faced numerous issues, many absences, and failures. I never managed to integrate entirely into academic life, which resulted in low academic self-esteem. To keep studying, I had to work in bars, restaurants, cultural centres, galleries, and museums, all while caring for my daughter too. Life wasn’t easy then, but I remember those years fondly.

Things started to change in August 2019 when I received the biggest Brazilian award for contemporary photography. In November, I opened my first solo exhibition, titled “Superexposição”. I appeared on the culture pages of the country’s biggest newspapers, my exhibition was considered one of the ten best of the year, and that reflected in sales. My works began to be part of national and international collections.

Talking about abortion was an important part of my work since the beginning and, as the procedure remains illegal in Brazil, the topic is a taboo. The upper middle class can always find a clinic willing to perform an illegal abortion if needed, whereas the lower middle class and the working class, often also religious, don’t have that option. If the stigma of abortion is a burden, that of teenage pregnancy is an even greater one. It’s as if you stumbled while still at the starting line, and that placed you far behind since the beginning of the marathon. You walk among other young people, trying to blend in, but the word “poor” is stamped like a red mark on your forehead. Much is said about prevention, about the care one should take to avoid unwanted pregnancies, but no one talks about those who personify the mistakes… We are seen as a disgrace, a lost cause. So, for me, it’s as if the prize was doubled, once it came: the same route everyone else ran, I ran with obstacles and became a medallist. Until the medal was taken from me.

At the beginning of 2020, with the money from my first sales, I rented an apartment right in the city centre. I had always lived far from it, away from the postcard landscapes, cultural facilities, and general opportunities. This motivated me to make a documentary called “Av. Brasil 24 Horas” about the phenomenon of “pendular migration”, which describes the daily commuting of workers across the city — something that in Rio de Janeiro can take up to a quarter of your day. It was pure happiness, a great achievement. I was 34 years old, with a career and a home just for my daughter and me. Things seemed to be going well, contrary to all expectations, until the pandemic came, and everything was put on hold.

The feeling was that I arrived too late at a party, and the DJ turned off the music just as I reached the dance floor. I lived next to a metro station, but the city had become a ghost town. Work kept coming because I was known for my online presence, an “internet artist”, a cursed sub-niche that suddenly became common. Since the digital environment was my habitat, I had no shortage of invitations for projects. And so I kept going, waiting for the world to reopen so I could finally enjoy the city, the theatres, concert halls, and beaches within walking distance.

In September 2021, the week-long Rio Art Fair marked the first major reopening of the art circuit. I was at a private party in a young artist’s studio when I was first accused of “transphobia”: a male person who identifies as a woman cornered me and threatened physical aggression if I did not leave the space. It was someone I had never interacted with before; I didn’t even know their name or recognize them from anywhere else. My position on gender self-identification was known in the art world. For years I had opposed them publicly, even in printed interviews where I openly criticised them, but I never addressed an individual; my point was the analysis of a theory I identify as harmful for women. For some time, I had been receiving accusations of this nature online, usually from a specific niche of academic-artists: it was stressful enough already but didn’t go beyond a handful of bullies. But at that party things escalated to physical intimidation and that went beyond what I was willing to tolerate.

I wrote a public piece on what had happened and what followed was even more absurd: lists of people who followed me or liked my aforementioned post, circulated on the internet. Not satisfied with threatening me, bullies threatened third parties, people close to me. I lost count of how many people were harassed for following me on Instagram and reported unfollowing me out of fear. They even looked up followers’ employers on LinkedIn. I had to delete all the online photos where I appeared with friends. Pages replicated my name with the adjectives transphobic, racist, and even Nazi. Death threats flooded my inbox, always graphic, with much hatred directed at my vagina and my mouth, calling it “dirty pussy” and worse, threatening to “cut your tongue, take out your teeth”. The profile of the gallery that represents my artwork was sent countless messages, with artists asking for my work to be burned or at least for the gallery to stop representing me. They flooded my daughter’s Instagram profile too. Everything is still so clear, so vivid. The modus operandi itself denounces who the fascists were in this case, but it seems people lose the ability to interpret reality when becoming part of a herd. People threatened others via inbox if they had anyone among their followers who still followed me. Curators threatened artists, artists threatened curators, and negotiated curatorial and art texts written as payment for the heresy of having given me a supportive “like”. All sorts of things happened from that one accusation of “transphobia”, including the sexual harassment of a woman, threatened for being my friend.

In the first days, I was frozen; the whole thing took on gigantic proportions. I had seen this happen before, but one is never prepared for their own pyre. The gallery I work with initially offered me legal support but, under pressure, they issued a statement that practically apologised for associating with me, making a “mea culpa”. The feeling was that everything I had built with sacrifice and dedication was collapsing. On the second day, I realised I couldn’t leave my building. I tried to go out to buy food but was overcome with panic. I asked for help from a stranger, who is now my best friend, and she came to my house and helped me pack. I left the city and stayed away for two months.

Some friends disappeared like lines of coke at an after-party. Others lingered a bit longer, trying to convince me that I had really done something very wrong and that the violence I was subjected to was actually a result of my actions. I disconnected from both groups, for sanity’s sake. It was easier with the first group, as it was a clear-cut case of shamelessly choosing to wear the winning team’s jersey. But with the second group, things get complicated; they show concern and affection, they know I don’t deserve this burden, but to remain integrated, they choose to believe in the narrative that I am the criminal.

They care about me, but they didn’t dare break ties with those who attacked me. If they allowed themselves to understand what was happening, they would have to take a stand or admit to being cowards. It’s a sad process, seeing the people you loved giving up on you. I can imagine how difficult it was; the closer they were to me, the more they were attacked, and the more explanations were demanded of them. And these attacks put their work and survival at risk. The thing is, you prove you have principles not when everything is going well, but when problems arise. Despite everything, it was an enriching experience, as I learned a lot about relationships. I recognize today how naive I was, living surrounded by opportunistic people whom I called friends.

I was accused of crimes, yet there is no police report against me. But the accusations make me a target for abuse: defamation, persecution, death threats. It seems like we live in a suspension of reality, where everything is understood through a new dogma. Women have ceased to exist under this new perspective. What happened in the meantime? Women became ethereal beings, reduced to accessories, prosthetics, lipstick, false eyelashes, panties, heels, wigs. We are purchasable. Neo-creationism: before Adam’s rib, now the result of surgical processes that create an artificial cavity. 

In Brazil, currently, no one in the mainstream media challenges gender theories. People in the art world seem to readily accept the theory that there is an essence that defines what it is to be a woman and that someone’s sex can be modified by altering documents or through surgery. Or even that children were born in the wrong body and should undergo aggressive surgical procedures, amputating healthy parts of their bodies, to find their “true form”. To me, it seems more like a cult, but I have never discriminated against a person who thinks that way; I certainly never threatened anyone with aggression for that reason. And when I made a public statement through my social media denouncing being on the receiving end of violence for years, I was the one accused of perpetuating hatred.

My greatest fear is not being able to handle the experience; it seems bigger than me, incomprehensible. I tried to explain my points in so many different ways, but I am still accused of prejudice. Deep down, it is a way to erase everything I created — a way to say, “See, we always knew, she’s just a dumb whore”. A friend told me he was at a penthouse in Leblon where the Rio de Janeiro art elite called me ignorant. I have the theory that I annoyed these people. Children from expensive schools, raised to be the centre of attention, felt uncomfortable when I started to grow in the art world. I am a problem for these people; I did a lot with very little, rubbing in their faces how mediocre they are. “Transphobia” accusations are the perfect excuse to express their class prejudices. The dominant class wants a peripheral artist as a token, not someone who can think. Being a woman, it gets even more complicated. I am too intelligent to be poor, too beautiful to be intelligent. As if those traits cancel each other out, people get confused by my existence.

I read that the brain understands cancellation as physical pain. I died a thousand times. It was like a Greek myth where you are tortured by a bird eating your guts, but the next day you wake up regenerated to suffer again, in an infinite cycle. Sleep became my escape; waking up was the beginning of a nightmare. I considered suicide countless times, but how does a mother kill herself? How can I not think of my daughter if it’s just me and her? Suicide was not an option, but the thoughts persisted.

Time passed, and people began to ask if the cancellation had ended as well. Unfortunately, it hadn’t. While I don’t receive as many threats today, the invitations for projects have dried up. Jobs in the art world are rare, if not non-existent, and associating with me seems to be considered criminal. I keep trying to hold my head high, but it’s increasingly difficult.

After everything I’ve given to art, I now find myself unable to invest in my daughter’s education, the one thing my family did for me. It breaks my heart. It hurts even more to know that, for her safety, she denies being my daughter when asked on the street. I wish her path could be easier than mine, that as a mother, I could open doors for her. Instead, my name makes her journey more difficult, and that leaves me profoundly sad.

My entire adult life has been dedicated to this field, and now I find myself torn between continuing to resist the abuse or giving up and finding a new path, since all other things aside, I question whether I want to stay in a domain filled with such cowardly and opportunistic people. What path, though, if this is all I know how to do in life? I know there are good people who are silent, but creating art requires courage.

Why go back to 2004 to talk about a cancellation in 2021? Because being a mother is an important fact. Misogyny is based on sex, not gender (whatever that is). A woman suffers misogyny for being a woman and not for identifying as a woman. The violence is sexual. That is the difference. Now, a hipster theoretical trend asks me to deny this defining experience of my story. It would have me deny it, smile, bow my head, and remain silent in the face of absurdities that, backed by two or three theorists, have gained the title of absolute truth. If I wanted to continue living from art, I would have to deny who I am and the heart and soul of my work as an artist.

The experience of being cancelled exposed not only the fragility of freedom of expression in the artistic world but also the profound vulnerability of women who dare to denounce violence. Despite the immense challenges and forced isolation, I continue to believe in the importance of my work and the need for an open and honest dialogue about the issues that shape our society. My journey is not just a testament to the adversities faced but also an affirmation of the resilience and strength needed to keep creating and resisting. Even in the face of censorship and intimidation, I choose not to remain silent, for true art is born from confronting reality, no matter how difficult it may be.