What survives from the 2013 protests in images:

reassembling political photographs to activate a democratic uprising

Abstract

The 2013 protests in Brazil brought upon a reflection as to how communicational technologies take part in collective actions, among those, photographs seem to have taken a preponderant role. In this article, we aim to problematize what a political image/photograph can be in the present Brazilian conjuncture and their relations to the concept of democracy. Through a methodology based on exploratory research, inventory, description and assemblage, we discuss in an in-between images account some of the agencies of photographs, taken not only as visual proof or mnemonic record, but as imaginal happenings with the potency to propel the production of a common. We used the files from the project Atlas #ProtestosBR as a basis for our research, in an attempt to approach the communicational constitution of the imaginal narratives surrounding these protests, and also as a way to activate this weft of photographs as actors-networks whose remembrance and survival is an important political task against the forgetfulness and a reductionist understanding of these past events and their unfolding over the last years.