Essay about care: Women and cities, from The Invisible Life to the center of João Pessoa

Abstract

I start from the astonishment provoked by the book by Martha Batalha, The invisible life of Eurídice Gusmão, from 2016. Questions related to the lives of women in the city, the experience of mothers and the territories they conform leapt to the eyes in the reading. Such issues were reworked to compose the eponymous film, directed by Karim Aïnouz, released in 2019. New haunting. The film, which gives movement, voice and color to the characters, emphasized certain actions whose memory came to echo in the stories found in the center of João Pessoa. I bring here some of the life experienced in the oldest region of the capital of Parahyba, in its glimpses of [in]visibility, in the expressions of care that refer to the film, but, above all, feed a political imaginary about possible futures.