The Museum of Removals emerged from the struggle of the residents of Vila Autódromo, a former fishing community in the west of Rio de Janeiro, against the wave of evictions carried out by the city government from 2009 until the first half of 2016 for the construction of sports complexes for the Olympics.
In addition to preserving parts of this history of dispossession that would be erased by the hegemonic narrative of the mega-events, the Museum also delimits a space of resistance against the continuing violence of urban development. In this sense, it demonstrates how an institution can articulate forms of political action both in its collection and with its presence.
As a social museology project, built on the collaboration among community members, students and professionals of different areas, the Museum invites us to recognize the publics’ authority over the constitution of their own heritage.
It is a living museum, whose collection includes not only documents and material remains but also the voice, memory and routine of the residents. This configuration is expressed even in its physical form, which cannot be reduced to a single building. The Museum of Removals is outspread in the open, across the geographical, imaginary and media territories of Vila Autódromo, in such a way that it is difficult to discern the separation between institution and community.
The streets of Vila are marked by a memory path that, on the occasion of the global pandemic, was remediated into a series of videos available on Instagram and on YouTube.