When ZAYA (@roadtozaya) invited me to do the sound work for one of the chapters of her performance AS LAVADEIRAS | WHYTE SHEETS, I initially felt nervous because the world of music production and sound design is still very new to me. But I quickly realized that this would be a very special learning experience. We aligned on the idea that this was going to be a dark atmosphere, an industrial ambient tale.

AS LAVADEIRAS not only reflects the care of the women who worked with water, fabrics, and the sheets we lay on—allowing for our renewal—but this time, it also tells the story of Valentim De Barros. He was an immigrant dancer who lived his homosexuality and trans identity at a time when we were light-years away from its decriminalization or recognition. In Nazi Germany, he was expelled shortly before World War II, performed in Spain and at Lisbon’s Teatro Éden, and was subjected to life in a cell, ultimately spending 50 years in a psychiatric hospital.

His story triggers in me the deep reality of what it means to resist under the scrutiny of queer issues, intertwined with fundamental mental health rights.

Imagining Zaya invoking Valentim and the washerwomen in her performance—happening in broad daylight so that their symbioses could be taught, their dances preserved, and their memory work safeguarded—is what led me to this creation.

This set also includes original sounds from Restive Plaggona (ID: Someone Different), CVNSUMED (ID: OP4), and Michel Giacometti, an ethnomusicologist who worked in Portugal from the early 1960s.

Photography / Composition © Hugo Santos / Largo Residências – Jardins do Bombarda 2025 (based on a photograph by Valentim de Barros 1939 PIDE: PIDE, Central Services, General Registry of Prisoners, book 55, record no. 10988 / via the website of the National Archives of Torre do Tombo).

Performance AS LAVADEIRAS | WHYTE SHEETS by ZAYA

Series called '0' on layers and background noise for DJ sets and immersion

0 - I

pnpnpnpnpn relief DJ set

inntrwthntr DJ set

- AN AMBIENT PHASE - EMBRACING DARK SOFTNESS -

heshethey

previous acts:
sero
DYSPHORICA
rosen
NO ORDER
gnclxndr

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