About Paulo Mariano — Senior Art Director and Creative Lead based in Lisbon, International Advertising Jury Member
Jun 11, 2020
Os primogénitos do Recife
Crianças acordam excitadas. É um dia especial, vão visitar o local de trabalho das suas mães. Acontece, um segredo entre nós, que hoje não podem ficar aos cuidados das avós, que estas precisam de ir aviar receitas e ir aos bancos. Sou capaz de entender tamanha euforia infantil. As mães, coincidentemente, todas, trabalham como mulheres-a-dias num prédio de luxo, no Recife. Não, dois prédios, as Torres Gémeas.
Todas as crianças do Recife já sonharam um visitar aquele lugar, um dia.
Como será? Como é possível um condomínio ter os melhores parques, escorregas, baloiços, pula-pulas e piscinas de toda cidade? É como se empilhassem caixas de bombons, umas por cima das outras, torre a torre.
Chegam todas muito cedo. É festa. Esqueci de dizer que já há outras crianças a brincarem nos prédios também.
Tocam à campainha. Uma fila quilométrica de mães, cada uma a segurar a mão de sua criança. Entram aos pares pelo portão. O porteiro olha abismado.
Um movimento coordenado. Se há beleza na coreografia, maior é a alegria que dali emana.
Filhos são instruídos a seguirem as suas mães até o local de trabalho, no quinto andar, onde patroas impacientes escutam o ladrar dos cães com seus cus habituados a arriar às 8:30. Sim, as patroas ainda assim gostam de cães e possuem vários. Eles, por sua vez, gostam de passear nas Torres Gémeas e são hoje duplamente privilegiados, porque se há coisa que as crianças em Recife gostam é de cães e passeios.
Mas não foi isso que aconteceu e, como todos sabemos, uma coisa leva a outra.
Foi um ato de crueldade, as patroas friamente decidiram que seriam as suas serventes, mães mulheres-a-dias, que levariam os cães urgentemente até o rés do chão para cagarem. Pois forma-se no 5 andar, novamente, uma fila de mulheres, cada uma com um filhote à espera do elevador.
As crianças ficam por lá a brincar. O quinto andar, já devem imaginar, é também uma caixa de surpresas, e crianças excitadas fazem barulho.
Barulho é a total falta de harmonia a ecoar de forma imprevisível ou incompreensível aos ouvidos de alguém. E crianças, como todo ser humano, podem ser também imprevisíveis e incompreensíveis.
As patroas? Manicure. Todas as unhas adultas do quinto andar estão ali para serem limadas, com aresta redonda. Mãos direitas lixam unhas de pés esquerdos. Espaços milimétricos são acertados na tentativa de reduzir imperfeições. Vuck Vuck Vuck Vuck, os instrumentos cumprem movimentos como que sobre um arco de violino, a cada rico dedo de cada mulher inquieta. E é esse o som que as patroas daquele andar apreciam. Era esse o som que esperavam naquele dia.
O certo é que a inquietude nos consome a todos. E até crianças se cansam de brincar. Até as crianças se fartam do paraíso. E estão no seu direito, penso eu.
Eis que como que em uníssono, os filhos das mulheres-a-dias foram atingidos por um incomodo profundo, um dos maiores, a saudade. E a saudade causa barulho. Dito e feito, querem as suas mães. Querem descer para o rés de chão e têm urgência.
A cena repete-se, mas de forma peculiar. Uma nova fila de mulheres ao lado de pequenos animais excitados à espera do elevador. O insubordinado choro alheio.
A exceção à regra faz com que essas mulheres abandonem a criançada dentro do elevador. Não irão para o rés do chão. Subirão ao nono andar e cada uma, a sua forma, procurará por sua mãe.
Porque as patroas apertaram o nono andar, isso não sei, mas o que todos sabemos é que apesar dos 35 metros de distância, o ouvido humano continua a ser um órgão avançado e sensível a voz materna.
Mulheres-a-dias, também negras, também pobres, também mães, encontram seus filhos estirados no chão das Torres Gémeas.
Jun 11, 2020
The Firstborn of Recife
Children wake up excited. It is a special day: they are going to visit their mothers at work. There is, between you and me, a little secret: today they cannot stay with their grandmothers, who have errands to run at the pharmacy and the bank. I can understand such childish excitement. Their mothers, coincidentally, all work as domestic cleaners in a luxury development in Recife. No, two buildings: the Twin Towers.
Every child in Recife has dreamed of visiting that place one day.
What must it be like? How can a condominium have the best playgrounds, slides, swings, trampolines and swimming pools in the entire city? It is as if boxes of chocolates had been stacked one on top of another, tower upon tower.
They all arrive very early. It is a celebration. I forgot to mention that there are already other children playing in the buildings.
They ring the bell. A kilometre-long line of mothers, each holding her child's hand. They enter through the gate in pairs. The doorman looks on in astonishment.
A coordinated movement. If there is beauty in the choreography, greater still is the joy that radiates from it.
The children are instructed to follow their mothers to their workplace on the fifth floor, where impatient mistresses listen to their dogs barking, their pampered arses accustomed to being out by 8:30. Yes, the mistresses still love dogs and have several of them. The dogs, in turn, like going for walks in the Twin Towers and are doubly privileged today, because if there is one thing children in Recife love, it is dogs and walks.
But that is not what happened and, as we all know, one thing leads to another.
It was an act of cruelty. The mistresses coldly decided that their servants — the children's mothers, the domestic cleaners — would urgently take the dogs down to the ground floor to shit. And so, once again, a line of women forms on the fifth floor, each with a puppy waiting for the elevator.
The children stay there to play. The fifth floor, as you may have guessed, is also a box of surprises, and excited children make noise.
Noise is the complete absence of harmony echoing unpredictably or incomprehensibly in someone's ears. And children, like every human being, can also be unpredictable and incomprehensible.
The mistresses? Manicures. All the adult nails on the fifth floor are there to be filed, their edges rounded. Right hands file left feet's toenails. Millimetre spaces are adjusted in an attempt to reduce imperfections. Vuck Vuck Vuck Vuck, the instruments move as if bowing a violin, over each rich woman's finger, each restless woman. And this is the sound the mistresses on that floor appreciate. This was the sound they had expected that day.
The truth is that restlessness consumes us all. And even children get tired of playing. Even children grow tired of paradise. And they have every right to, I think.
Then, almost in unison, the children of the domestic cleaners are overcome by a profound discomfort, one of the greatest of all: longing. And longing makes noise. Sure enough, they want their mothers. They want to go down to the ground floor, and they are in a hurry.
The scene repeats itself, but in a peculiar way. Another line of women, this time alongside small, excited animals waiting for the elevator. The insubordinate cry of others.
The exception to the rule leads these women to leave the children inside the elevator. They will not go down to the ground floor. They will go up to the ninth floor, and each, in her own way, will look for her mother.
Why the mistresses pressed the ninth floor, I don't know. But what we all know is that, despite the thirty-five metres of distance, the human ear remains an advanced and sensitive organ when it comes to a mother's voice.
Domestic cleaners, also Black, also poor, also mothers, find their children sprawled on the floor of the Twin Towers.
Elevator video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e-UnhgEVEQ
Children wake up excited. It is a special day: they are going to visit their mothers at work. There is, between you and me, a little secret: today they cannot stay with their grandmothers, who have errands to run at the pharmacy and the bank. I can understand such childish excitement. Their mothers, coincidentally, all work as domestic cleaners in a luxury development in Recife. No, two buildings: the Twin Towers.
Every child in Recife has dreamed of visiting that place one day.
What must it be like? How can a condominium have the best playgrounds, slides, swings, trampolines and swimming pools in the entire city? It is as if boxes of chocolates had been stacked one on top of another, tower upon tower.
They all arrive very early. It is a celebration. I forgot to mention that there are already other children playing in the buildings.
They ring the bell. A kilometre-long line of mothers, each holding her child's hand. They enter through the gate in pairs. The doorman looks on in astonishment.
A coordinated movement. If there is beauty in the choreography, greater still is the joy that radiates from it.
The children are instructed to follow their mothers to their workplace on the fifth floor, where impatient mistresses listen to their dogs barking, their pampered arses accustomed to being out by 8:30. Yes, the mistresses still love dogs and have several of them. The dogs, in turn, like going for walks in the Twin Towers and are doubly privileged today, because if there is one thing children in Recife love, it is dogs and walks.
But that is not what happened and, as we all know, one thing leads to another.
It was an act of cruelty. The mistresses coldly decided that their servants — the children's mothers, the domestic cleaners — would urgently take the dogs down to the ground floor to shit. And so, once again, a line of women forms on the fifth floor, each with a puppy waiting for the elevator.
The children stay there to play. The fifth floor, as you may have guessed, is also a box of surprises, and excited children make noise.
Noise is the complete absence of harmony echoing unpredictably or incomprehensibly in someone's ears. And children, like every human being, can also be unpredictable and incomprehensible.
The mistresses? Manicures. All the adult nails on the fifth floor are there to be filed, their edges rounded. Right hands file left feet's toenails. Millimetre spaces are adjusted in an attempt to reduce imperfections. Vuck Vuck Vuck Vuck, the instruments move as if bowing a violin, over each rich woman's finger, each restless woman. And this is the sound the mistresses on that floor appreciate. This was the sound they had expected that day.
The truth is that restlessness consumes us all. And even children get tired of playing. Even children grow tired of paradise. And they have every right to, I think.
Then, almost in unison, the children of the domestic cleaners are overcome by a profound discomfort, one of the greatest of all: longing. And longing makes noise. Sure enough, they want their mothers. They want to go down to the ground floor, and they are in a hurry.
The scene repeats itself, but in a peculiar way. Another line of women, this time alongside small, excited animals waiting for the elevator. The insubordinate cry of others.
The exception to the rule leads these women to leave the children inside the elevator. They will not go down to the ground floor. They will go up to the ninth floor, and each, in her own way, will look for her mother.
Why the mistresses pressed the ninth floor, I don't know. But what we all know is that, despite the thirty-five metres of distance, the human ear remains an advanced and sensitive organ when it comes to a mother's voice.
Domestic cleaners, also Black, also poor, also mothers, find their children sprawled on the floor of the Twin Towers.
Elevator video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e-UnhgEVEQ