(Re)enacting the popular: narratives about Brazilian culture in an exhibition

Abstract Museums, especially those associated to projects of national identity or that have an argument linked to the State, are generally spaces with little or no openness to diversity of discourses on the memories of events lived and shared by groups or minorities. In this way, we intend to understand how museums (re)construct and (re)enact narratives about Brazilian identities. To this end, we will analyze the discourses of Pavilhão das Culturas Brasileiras, a museum that intends, according to its conceptual design, to present to the public the different practices – material and immaterial – that coexist in the country. We aim to explain how the exhibition that inaugurated the institution, called Puras Misturas, built symbolic relations that enunciated arguments about Brazilian culture. From the analysis of the exhibition, we seek to highlight the contradictions and tensions structured by the ways of exposing popular and hegemonic artifacts in the museum.