Documentation of the Transnomad camp by OPAVIVARÁ!

OPAVIVARÁ! write a letter on the conception of Transnômades [Transnomad]. The research for the project was recorded by the collective at the recycling cooperatives of Baixada do Glicério and at CEAGESP in São Paulo. Take a look:

"Transient, transit, trance, transfer, transfusion, transgression, transphobia, transfuse, transgressor, transsexual, transvestism, translation, transportation, transmission, transposition, transfiguration, transfixion, transaction, transition, transcription, transformation, transcurrence, transcendence, transparency, translucence, translucency, transaminase, transubstantiation, transgender, transgenic, transgenerational, transtropical, transamazonian, transamerica, transpolar, transatlantic, transcontinental, transnational, transoceanic, transtemporal, transmodal, transcultural, transdisciplinary, transcreation, transposition, transversal, transmogrify, transmute, transnomad".

"Transnomads, mobile modules, adapted handcarts, transsignified, driven by human power traversing the extramural public spaces of the city, vital transportation cells for the functioning of the arterial fluxes of the pulsating megalopolis. 

There are many hand-carts that still circulate in the city of São Paulo, not powered by fossil fuel engines or oxen or horses, but by carters and carriers that move the metropolis. Everything passes by and crosses the paths of these machines made of wood, metal and sweat. From the carts of CEAGESP, the city major food supply warehouse, and those of other downtown markets, which distribute almost all the food consumed by the famished city, to the carts that are at the other end of this cycle – collecting, separating, and redirecting discarded, dismissed, alienated materials to their proper destinations. Resignifying waste as raw material and reintegrating it into the production system".

"We went out in search of these mobile modules, these walking carriers, nomadic dynamic in eternal wandering, always in a resistance and collision of body and city, flesh and asphalt, fulfilling a fundamental role for the existence of the urban ecosystem. Around the centers of food distribution or under the viaducts at the recycling cooperatives we find cars, shopping carts, wooden handcarts and the stories of those who exercise this function which requires physical strength, invention and great disposition".

"From this life in movement we resignify these mobile devices by proposing different dynamics inspired by the very way carters and carriers utilize them throughout their day-to-day, on their breaks from work. A bed for resting, a shelter/home for the night on the street, a table for lunch, for a chat, to play cards on an interval from all the rush, a library of books found in the trash, the stereo of a little jolting radio".

"We have created a transnomadic camp, a hut house tent occupancy that can move and settle anywhere, creating a temporary autonomous zone for meetings and exchanges that can quickly be picked up in order for carriers to continue on to wherever they would like. A nomadic community occupying the open spaces of the city, creating breaks in the urban flux to think about the acceleration of time and the compartmentalization of space, about live uncertainties. Enabling other possible ways of living together".

All images: Courtesy of OPAVIVARÁ!