Leonardo Gabriel do Amaral
Bio/Statement
Selected
Colonização Cultural (2025-)
Colonização Cultural (First Draft, Full View)
My life growing up in Brazil has always been deeply impacted by the United States, in both obvious geopolitical ways and less obvious cultural ways.When the American economy did poorly, so did ours. When the dollar to real exchange rate was high, certain products started costing more. The rise of right-wing populism in the US all but surely led to the rise of the very same phenomenon in Brazil.But that's not all. America ingrained itself into our culture. It was in the restaurants at the mall, on our televisions, and in movie theaters. And with the rise of libertarianism and the technocapital it was in everything. The websites we shopped on, the streaming services we used. It was in our phones, it was our phones. America became the culture we consumed, and the platforms we consumed it on.
Colonização Cultural combines the design of the Brazilian flag with the design principles of the American companies with the largest stake in the country, from Amazon, to McDonald's, to Disney, to Apple. The project shows that colonization is still happening, just in more subtle and accepted way.