The Maranhão artist makes altars out of Afro-Brazilian soundsystems
Black title-screens set to the calming chirp of birds and crickets, then the sound of a gentle crackling fire, before the black dissolves to reveal palm trees against a pale blue sky shrouded in wispy white smoke. The camera pans down, slowly, to reveal not a campfire, but a towering yellow radiola. The music starts.
Radiolas are giant custom-made sound systems assembled from stacks of speakers, amplifiers and subwoofers. These structures originate from Maranhão, a state in the north of Brazil sometimes referred to as ‘Brazilian Jamaica’ due to its affinity for reggae, rumoured to have made its way to the region via maritime routes or airwaves somewhere around the 1970s.
Through the lenses of artist and Maranhão-native Gê Viana, the radiola becomes altarlike. It emerges as an obvious centrepiece for local celebrations anchored in Tambor de Mina tradition: a religion that blends African and Brazilian Indigenous principles and uses drums (tambor in Portuguese) in worship, sometimes to induce a state of trance.
For the artist, a similar somatic shift can be found at reggae parties. “When you start dancing, you melt” Viana tells Mateus Nunes in the March issue of ArtReview. In Radiola de Promessa (2025), the artist captures the instants leading up to a celebration: the steady kneading of dough, the repetitive thud of woodcutting, speech breaking into song, the twirling of dresses and – after the drums have finished setting the beat – the bass that starts blasting from the radiola. That is, a life steeped in rhythm.
Screening dates:
Art Lovers Movie Club: Gê Viana, Radiola de Promessa (Radiola of Promise), 2025
2 April–14 May 2026
© Courtesy the artist
Born and based in Maranhão, Brazil, Gê Viana’s work emerges from the streets and collective spaces, weaving together historical archives, material culture, oral memory, and personal experience to compose insurgent visual narratives. Her practice is deeply shaped by Afropindoramic identity and the culture of Maranhão, acting in direct confrontation with colonial records, drawing inspiration from community practices, the liturgies of terreiros, street rituals, and the inventions of popular culture. Viana’s work proposes the creation of images capable of transforming worldviews, celebrating the vitality of life forms and opening pathways that are more prosperous and energizing.
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