Projected Quarantine
2025
MÃdia Ninja e Instituto Moreira Salles
Curatorship: Open Call
MÃdia Ninja e Instituto Moreira Salles
Curatorship: Open Call
The project Projected Quarantine, carried out by MÃdia NINJA, was part of the Convida Program of the Instituto Moreira Salles (IMS) and was developed simultaneously across the collective’s digital platforms and through urban projections in five Brazilian capitals. The initiative selected thirty works to occupy building facades, expanding the exhibition space into the city’s territory within a context of social isolation.
Gleyson Borges participated with the work Masked, which interrogates the meanings of the mask within the context of the pandemic. The image depicts a Black man wearing a surgical mask, bringing into focus a stark ambiguity: the act of protection against COVID-19 can simultaneously trigger racialized interpretations that associate a covered face with suspicion and criminalization.
The work highlights the paradoxical condition of Black bodies in public space: protecting oneself from a health threat may also mean exposing oneself to another form of violence. Between care and risk, the image makes explicit how racism structures everyday perceptions and redefines ordinary gestures as potential markers of danger.
