About Paulo Mariano — Senior Art Director and Creative Lead based in Lisbon, International Advertising Jury Member
Image: Julia Hosse | 2019
Apr 24, 2020
Animais e seus afetos
Uma criança sofre bullying por ter nome de presidente. Possui o nome, mas nenhuma semelhança física, nem sequer o movimento dos cabelos. Não tem cabeça para tomar decisões, é o que escuta diariamente. Uma falta de liberdade que é justificada pela pouca idade, define o seu pai, militar reformado, reprimido desde a infância, tanto pela proximidade excessiva com familiares e as suas carreiras bem-sucedidas no exército, como pela ausência de diálogo.
O pai mantém-se isolado socialmente e conta histórias a si mesmo, decidindo personagens, ações, conflitos.
Reconta mentalmente até que façam sentido. É uma técnica de que se orgulha.
Diz-se homem, viril, homofóbico, crente, casado, analfabeto funcional, racista. Decisões, entre tantas, tomadas muito antes de batizar o filho.
A criança faz anos amanhã. Não tem outro desejo. O que quer é ir ao zoo rever o felino da jaula 7. Há quatro anos viu-o pela primeira vez e nesse dia o animal também o olhou. Por três segundos parou de comer e olhou fundo nos olhos do miúdo. O universo foi tomado por total ausência de sentido. Setecentos porquês e nenhuma resposta. A criança não esquece. Desde então repete religiosamente as mesmas decisões que tomara naquele dia: a mesma roupa, o mesmo saco de pipocas, o mesmo caminho. Amanhã acordará cedo para tentar ser visto.
Gosta de ver televisão com o pai. Parecem três numa conversa. Dois escutam, um argumenta. Estão agora a ouvir o jornal da noite e uma história inusitada: câmaras de vigilância em todo o mundo mostram animais selvagens a perambular em espaço urbano.
Macacos, habitantes de templos na Tailândia, devido à falta de turistas decidem um assalto em bando nas ruas de Lopburi. Um arrastão malsucedido que acaba em briga.
Um gato-de-algália com tendência depressiva locomove-se sozinho, explicitamente à luz do dia, pelas ruas de Kozhikode, Índia, à procura de pelo menos um veículo capaz de lhe tomar a vida. Não encontra.
Javalis são vistos em Barcelona. Um urso negro na Carolina do Norte. Praias lotadas no Peru, este ano por centenas de aves marinhas. Cabras montesas decidem trocar rochas por superfícies brilhantes, amassando capôs de SUVs e hatchbacks no País de Gales. Um posicionamento, obviamente, de carácter vertical, pensa o pai.
A criança levanta-se e vai dormir. O seu pai já contara a si mesmo que não irão ao zoológico, mas esquecera-se de contar ao filho.
Nesta mesma noite um puma decidirá descer da montanha Cerro Manquehue e chegará a Santiago, Chile.
Em passos lentos por uma rua deserta, irá parar em frente ao muro de uma residência de classe média do bairro de Ñuñoa. O momento do salto que dará por cima deste mesmo muro será captado por câmaras e a cena será a notícia mais comentada no dia seguinte.
A criança já está no quarto. O pai baixa o volume do televisor, mas ainda escuta algo. Vai ao quarto do filho, abre a porta e avisa:
— Volto já, Jair, fica em casa.
A criança não escuta. Já está a sonhar com a jaula 7.
Apr 24, 2020
Animals and Their Affections
A child is bullied for having a president’s name. He has the name, but no physical resemblance, not even in the way the hair moves. He has no head for making decisions, that is what he hears daily. A lack of freedom justified by his young age, so his father decides, a retired military man, repressed since childhood, both by excessive proximity to relatives and their successful army careers, and by the absence of dialogue.
The father keeps himself socially isolated and tells stories to himself, deciding on characters, actions, conflicts.
He retells them mentally until they make sense. It is a technique he is proud of.
He calls himself a man, virile, homophobic, a believer, married, functionally illiterate, racist. Decisions, among so many, taken long before naming his son.
The child has a birthday tomorrow. He has no other wish. What he wants is to go to the zoo and see the big cat in cage 7 again. Four years ago he saw it for the first time, and that day the animal looked back at him. For three seconds it stopped eating and looked deep into the boy’s eyes. The universe was taken by a total absence of meaning. Seven hundred whys and no answer. The child does not forget. Since then he religiously repeats the same decisions he made that day: the same clothes, the same bag of popcorn, the same route.
Tomorrow he will wake early to try to be seen.
He likes watching television with his father. They look like three in a conversation. Two listen, one argues. They are now watching the evening news and an unusual story: surveillance cameras around the world are showing wild animals wandering through urban space.
Monkeys, inhabitants of temples in Thailand, deprived of tourists, stage a mass raid in the streets of Lopburi. A failed heist that ends in a brawl.
A civet cat with depressive tendencies moves alone, openly in daylight, through the streets of Kozhikode, India, looking for at least one vehicle capable of taking its life. It finds none.
Wild boars are seen in Barcelona. A black bear in North Carolina. Crowded beaches in Peru, this year by hundreds of seabirds. Mountain goats decide to swap rocks for shiny surfaces, denting the bonnets of SUVs and hatchbacks in Wales. A positioning, obviously, of a vertical nature, thinks the father.
The child gets up and goes to bed. His father had already told himself they will not go to the zoo, but had forgotten to tell his son.
That same night a puma will decide to come down from the Cerro Manquehue mountain and will reach
Santiago, Chile. In slow steps along a deserted street, it will stop in front of the wall of a middle-class house in the Ñuñoa neighbourhood. The moment of the leap it will make over that same wall will be captured by cameras, and the scene will be the most discussed news of the following day.
The child is already in his room. The father turns down the volume of the television, but still hears something.
He goes to his son’s room, opens the door and says:
— I’ll be right back, Jair. Stay home.
The child does not hear. He is already dreaming of cage 7.
A child is bullied for having a president’s name. He has the name, but no physical resemblance, not even in the way the hair moves. He has no head for making decisions, that is what he hears daily. A lack of freedom justified by his young age, so his father decides, a retired military man, repressed since childhood, both by excessive proximity to relatives and their successful army careers, and by the absence of dialogue.
The father keeps himself socially isolated and tells stories to himself, deciding on characters, actions, conflicts.
He retells them mentally until they make sense. It is a technique he is proud of.
He calls himself a man, virile, homophobic, a believer, married, functionally illiterate, racist. Decisions, among so many, taken long before naming his son.
The child has a birthday tomorrow. He has no other wish. What he wants is to go to the zoo and see the big cat in cage 7 again. Four years ago he saw it for the first time, and that day the animal looked back at him. For three seconds it stopped eating and looked deep into the boy’s eyes. The universe was taken by a total absence of meaning. Seven hundred whys and no answer. The child does not forget. Since then he religiously repeats the same decisions he made that day: the same clothes, the same bag of popcorn, the same route.
Tomorrow he will wake early to try to be seen.
He likes watching television with his father. They look like three in a conversation. Two listen, one argues. They are now watching the evening news and an unusual story: surveillance cameras around the world are showing wild animals wandering through urban space.
Monkeys, inhabitants of temples in Thailand, deprived of tourists, stage a mass raid in the streets of Lopburi. A failed heist that ends in a brawl.
A civet cat with depressive tendencies moves alone, openly in daylight, through the streets of Kozhikode, India, looking for at least one vehicle capable of taking its life. It finds none.
Wild boars are seen in Barcelona. A black bear in North Carolina. Crowded beaches in Peru, this year by hundreds of seabirds. Mountain goats decide to swap rocks for shiny surfaces, denting the bonnets of SUVs and hatchbacks in Wales. A positioning, obviously, of a vertical nature, thinks the father.
The child gets up and goes to bed. His father had already told himself they will not go to the zoo, but had forgotten to tell his son.
That same night a puma will decide to come down from the Cerro Manquehue mountain and will reach
Santiago, Chile. In slow steps along a deserted street, it will stop in front of the wall of a middle-class house in the Ñuñoa neighbourhood. The moment of the leap it will make over that same wall will be captured by cameras, and the scene will be the most discussed news of the following day.
The child is already in his room. The father turns down the volume of the television, but still hears something.
He goes to his son’s room, opens the door and says:
— I’ll be right back, Jair. Stay home.
The child does not hear. He is already dreaming of cage 7.