Analize Nicolini, Minha História Deixa Que Eu Conto (My Story Let Me Tell It), vinyl adhesive on mirror, variable dimensions, 2024.
"Minha História Deixa Que Eu Conto" (My Story Let Me Tell It) by Analize Nicolini is an autobiographical work that explores the relationship between alterity, discrimination, and diversity, as well as the tensions between the personal and the collective. This duality is reflected in the interaction between the reflective (what we see) and the reflexive (what we think and feel about what we see). Using vinyl adhesive on mirrors of variable dimensions, the work presents the phrase "Minha história deixa que eu conto" ("Let me tell my own story"), arranged in two lines. The choice of the mirror as a medium is crucial to the proposed reflection, as it both reflects the physical image and reveals the social influence in the construction of identity.
The central phrase of the work invites people, especially cis and trans women, to reclaim the authorship of their personal and political stories, a matter of great relevance in contexts where these voices are often silenced or their narratives improperly appropriated. In this sense, the work dialogues with the ideas of Gloria Anzaldúa, in her reflections on identity, cultural resistance, and the importance of narrating one’s own story, understood as a form of survival and resistance, especially for historically marginalized voices.
Additionally, Minha História Deixa Que Eu Conto establishes a dialogue with Paul B. Preciado’s discourse in I Am the Monster That Speaks to You, where Preciado challenges cis-heteronormative norms and asserts the right to tell his own story as a trans person. Like Preciado, Nicolini proposes a rupture with the power structures that discipline identities and bodies, inviting viewers to reflect on the narratives imposed on them and to reclaim their own stories as an act of resistance.
This work, therefore, creates a path that encourages viewers to confront their own images and reflect on the meaning of the text in their lives, situating itself within a broader context of artistic practices that question the role of art in social transformation and the construction of new and urgent narratives.
