The windstorm turned into a cyclone that swept everything away, and all that was left was you.“ Pêdra Costa
Becoming Rio gives continuation to Roberta Lima’s journey of change.

In 2023 and 2024, Lima travelled the Amazon region in search of their origins. Lima found out that only the men in their family were documented and noticed that the women were only mentioned in the occasion of their weddings.
Until today neither Lima’s grandmother birth certificate, nor documents of the women they descent from, haven’t been found.

Roberta Lima decides to claim at least their own birth certificate. For that, Lima goes to the same office in Manaus where they were registered at birth. By changing their gender from “female” to “non binary” and their name to Rio, Lima affirms both their gender and Amazonian identities.

The installation built vertically in the TAL residency space, is made of plants and organic elements, forming a structure of two opposing parts:
The upper part is pulsing and alive. The colorful flowers represent the body that transforms and desire as a form of resistance. In the middle vines are intertwined. The lower part decaying and crumbling, it represents normative systems of control that are pushed down.

The installation is a visual interpretation of Paul Preciado’s analysis of “death drive” as systemic. Focusing on the destructive aspects of current political and technological systems, rather than on the psychological aspects of the self-destructive body.