Maps of women on the asphalt: dialogues about the cultural complex of machismo

Abstract

In this text, the author adopts an essayistic methodology driven by the desire to restore the soul’s polis to poetry. Using Jung’s active imagination technique, the author engages in a dialogue with a graffiti located in Salvador, Bahia. This artwork is part of the “Mourning” series conceived by the Bahian artist Thalita Andrade. The graffiti in question portrays a woman whose image underwent significant transformations during Jair Bolsonaro’s government, becoming a more direct object of reflection on the ongoing political and cultural changes in Brazilian society. From this perspective, this article aims to analyze how the change in the graffitied image, seemingly so confined, may also reflect a need for collective change. To do so, in addition to the post-Jungian concept of cultural complexes, the author utilizes Jung’s theory of psychic energy, along with contributions from the fields of art history and literature.