Music and madness are only a couple of things constituting the harmony of protest Fefa imagines through their latest single and video, “Welcome to the Zoo.” Living and entering history, Fefa talks to Coeval about transformation, deep emotion, and the body without a name.

You call yourself a “transmutayviva”, a “transmetaformo” in your IG bio. What do these terms mean for you and how does this carry with it the body without name?
These terms are a fusion of words that become new, a hybrid being that resembles exactly how I see myself. Transmuting at all times in constant transformation, where what you saw yesterday is no longer what it is today, the hybrid is alive because it never stops. It is crazy to think that several times I wake up, look at myself in the bathroom mirror, and wonder who was there. These personalities, egos, and people who live inside me end up welcoming me and bringing me different strengths, all because I can administer their densities, then work with each one according to my needs. Then the space for transmutation and metamorphosis comes in. It is all movement, what is no longer here, what it all once was.

Thinking about this constant movement and change, the nameless body is present: the body from the beyond, the body that is not identified or cataloged within a binary study of everything. It is a body that breaks everything. This body carries the destruction of the ancient world and brings within a new world outside of it.

How does performance and staging support or render your visual language?
It is a complement to everything, in fact it ends up being everything. Both performance and theater are my primary study bases, they are the places where I can find myself and lose myself too. There are also some dubious spaces that overlap each other at times. Thinking about this juxtaposition helps me to create everything I do, and it may seem modest, but it feels very natural since my existence is a direct result of art.

My body is art all the time. My body is also all the other areas in which art is consolidated. I like to think about how many languages I will still be able to create for myself and for this world that I built in my head. I am gradually letting people see and interact with this world, because it is how the universe is always expanding.

When I actually started to work with music I noticed that another part of me was being born. To tell the truth, being exposed to people, I just didn't feel safe enough to start a career within that space. This part joined in with all the other parts that already existed within my being, because both talk.

Your latest video project, “Bem-Vindo ao Zoo,” brings together disjointed time and imagery through flesh, dance, and spoken word. What inspired this project?
“Zoo” was born from the moment I started working in São Paulo night as an artist with the collective TLGBTQI+, called “Animalia.” The inspiration comes directly from how I started feeling suffocated in the mega exhibition my body was. Performance and theater was not enough for me anymore. I needed to musicalize these words of protest. Initially, I was not planning on releasing this song as a first single. I did not think it was my debut in music, to be honest, but I learned over time that some things need to happen and so I was calm about it.

The melody of this song came to me quickly, which made me happy and surprised. I found myself singing the lyrics in many places and it flowed. What really took was the release. It was postponed several times for innumerable reasons, and that the majority was insecure with my voice. Besides that, I am also a bit boring and a perfectionist hahaha, but I keep working on it. I am totally proud of this project and it was one of the most beautiful and sincere things I have ever done. My pride comes from exactly how I managed to achieve a project of this magnitude that to me seemed impossible when I drew the whole storyboard and I introduced it to my team. Regardless, it is alive and in the world, being one of the first beings that will leave my art belly.

Crochet dolly masks, striped body paint, and the jungle are only a few of your distinctive ocular fragments. How did these symbols come about?
The crochet mask is the greatest symbol of my first era, and part of the principle of protection. I was already feeling uncomfortable with the relationship of dealing with the public and people or when I am experiencing bad emotions. One day, I saw a crochet that my grandmother sewed and it covered my entire face, my face was protected. This protection comes twice. The first because it is something maternal coming directly from the hands of my grandmother. I have always lived with her, so we create some spells together every now and then. Second, it protects me from the world. I can see everyone, but no one can see my real face, my expressions. This mystery fascinates me in order to feed these unknown figures at different times.

I am passionate about body painting, and of course, I could not miss this trademark hahaha. I love to think about how our body is a canvas ready to be painted. That each color has very different powers, like crystals. From the video, the white stripes are symbolic of wellness, and badness in blue stripes. I had to put this symbolism in because it is how I feel most of the time, alternating between these feelings.

The jungle comes from my contact with nature, which serves as a direct inspiration for many of my creations. I am passionate about biology, the study of species, and the whole look. The forest in the video welcomes the old, the background, and my voice inside a cave echoing alone struggling with itself. The sound of silence that nature proposes is certainly my favorite song, and is the one I miss most since I live in the madness of a big, gray city like São Paulo.

Does the body without name operate through secret or through flesh? Or both?
I believe in both and that is so visceral and enriching. I love the mystery that things can take and how it affects people. It is great to see people's reactions when they have a surprise or wonder what you propose, but it is also very good to be able to share it in a more open, broad way. My body will always be a body without a name, precisely because it is constantly questioning and constantly changing. I feel comfortable in the uncomfortable, it is as if I look directly into the eye of the hurricane and in a fraction of a second I am the hurricane itself uniting nature in a hybrid way.

Today, it is Fefa who is in my body. I say today because she is one of my many personalities and I may no longer be Fefa tomorrow. I remain totally open to respect all beings that exist within me and that are reflections of specific points of my personality. Some within that body are distributed from love, anger, apprehension, freedom, expression, depression, union, somatization, and everyone lives harmoniously (I think hahaha) within me.

What is next for Fefa?
The program this year is full of news. I have been specifically working on the remix of “Bem-Vindo ao Zoo” that will have a special guest, and it has been wonderful to revisit this song with a calm and sweet feeling that I find myself today. I am still working on specific singles that I want to release over this year. At the same time, I started working on compositions for my first EP, and I am also recording the music video for my second single that for now I will keep in surprise.

My real life has been very busy because of all these activities, but this is the point, you know? I feel alive if I'm moving, if I'm producing, and nothing better than being busy creating and materializing many projects that you have in your mind. Throwing to the world what I have inside has been wonderful, and the reception I have been receiving makes me infinitely happy and motivated. Here in Brazil, being an independent artist is very difficult, either due to the lack of money or the lack of support for culture and several other areas that the current fascist government has propagated, but fuck them because we keep building and we will not only survive, but live too. It is very new for me to be able to give an interview about my work and I am very grateful for the opportunity and for the affection of the Coeval team. With love Fefa.