Jota Mombaça

Artist Jota Mombaça is an interdisciplinary artist whose work unfolds from poetry, critical theory, queer studies, political intersectionality, anti-colonial justice, and the redistribution of violence. Mombaça defines themselves as a non-binary black bicha, born and raised in Natal, in the northeast of Brazil. Bicha is a Brazilian slang term used against gay men. For the artist, it is important to emphasize these definitions as forms of reappropriation of discriminatory terms in self-identification. The sonic and visual features of words play an essential role in relating decolonial and gender disobedience in their work and are often the point of departure for performances, performative readings, and workshops. In recent years, Mombaça has been investigating the relationship between monstrosity and humanity and the tensions between ethics, aesthetics, art, and politics in the knowledge productions of the global south. Through performance, critical fabulations, and situational strategies of knowledge production, the artist intends to rehearse the end of the world as we know it and speculate on what comes after we dislodge the Modern-Colonial subject off its podium.