Small Heroic Sculpture #4: O Cadeado

I chain myself to a street post with a bicycle lock in the area of Flamengo in Rio de Janeiro in front of an abandoned tall building around 10 p.m. With this action, I replicate an episode from a couple of years ago, when the so-called vigilantes punished a 14 year-old street robber by beating him almost to death, cutting half of his ear, stripping him naked, and fixing him to exactly the same street post with a bicycle lock. The boy was released only around 5 a.m. when a local school teacher, Yvonne Bezerra, called the fire brigade that managed to break the bicycle lock and take him to the hospital. My experiment carried a different result: every 5 minutes, cars driven by locals pulled over to try to help, release me, generally to make me feel better. I was visited numerous times by the police and the fire brigade. I did not speak and seemed to not notice the commotion. This was quite disappointing to my potential saviours – ergo, gringos shouldn’t suffer. My performance is over in the small hours of the morning with the arrival of BOP, a group of the military police. Their visit is never a joke, so I succumb to my freedom.

• Medium: SLS printing in powder polyamide, ABS plastic, pigmented aerographic hand

• Limited edition: 5 + 2 AP

• Size: 47.0 x 55.0 x 35.0cm

• Year: 2019