“What is queer for me? It’s like a radical position in connection with my desires, my body, and how I act in world. It’s about destroying binary gender but also the structures of power. It’s about fighting against racism and the whole shit we have in our society about bodies: agism, ablism, xenophobia, social classes, and so on.

So queer for me is a more radical position that is born in our bodies and goes through society, reflecting, and changing how the capitalistic and colonialist society is acting against the marginalized people. Because marginalization is a project of this system, for me to be queer, or to understand myself as a queer person, is to understand my position as a political person, political desire, or political existence in the world.

I'm a performance artist. It's interesting when I think about if it was my decision to become a performer or if it was the decision of the society. As a queer person, non-normative, in Brazilian society, where I was born and raised, my body was tagged everyday as a person out of the norm. And when I first stepped on the stage and the audience applauded a lot, I was like "I want this, I don't want to suffer violence. I want to be recognized. And to be seen."

And in my case, it is impossible to separate or divide queerness and performance art. Because performance art is an art that is mostly political or critical. And queerness is the same. And I work on queerness in my artwork because we still have to talk a lot about it. We still have to show critical ways for the audience or people in the society to think and transform themselves. So my work is transformative, political art. This is where I place myself.”

Excerpt from Audio Interview with Pêdra Costa, 2021