GAME OF FORTUNE

Texto completo em Português disponível aqui

On the 17th of May 1925, the newspaper A Provincia of the city of Recife announced the auction of all the assets of my maternal family. The exaltation of family members and recreational travel plans are prominently printed in the initial lines, but between the lines, the ruin of a family is revealed, which would hastily board a ship and leave the Northeast of Brazil, never returning to their homeland.

Gradually, the lines of the ad become contradicting and describe in detail personal objects, furniture and clothing offered for sale - including the auction of the family home. What is not allowed to be mentioned either in the pages of the newspaper, or in conversations between family members, are the details of how the entire fortune was lost.

It was supposedly in bets and card games that João Vieira Arcoverde lost his family fortune. One hundred years later, these are the rumors that remain from this chapter in our history. The only vestige of its veracity is the lifelong aversion his daughter, my maternal grandmother, had to card games.

 

Excerpt from the ad:

Good auction. Today - May 17th - at 1pm - Rua Augusta n.540, where the Illustrious Mr. Colonel João Vieira Arco Verde, Merchant who retires with his distinguished family, on a leisure trip to Rio de Janeiro.

 

If the way in which the family's fortune was lost was kept under lock and key, the way in which the family made its fortune was never a secret. It was always openly discussed the ownership of several sugar cane plantations, and that of enslaved people, which is intrinsically part of the cultivation of this crop. As operators of sugar cane plantations, the accumulation of wealth in my family's matriarchal line was only possible in the 19th century through their participation in the colonial machine powered by slave labor.

Using the family archive, a deck of cards was created. Photos of my ancestors illustrate the suits of playing cards. The meaning of each minor arcana card reveals the loss of fortune in gambling, and a family that suddenly breaks down.

The icons of the major arcana of the tarot, on the other hand, describe the moral ruin of those who acquire their fortune through voluntary participation in the human enslavement, and the use of enslaved labor acquired at auction 'by the hammer'.

 

I revisit these stories to comprehend my own history, understand my lineage, and recognize my family's role in society. I hope this deck allows others to do the same.

This deck was created with the intention of revealing hidden events, unspoken histories and unrecognized social roles in one's own ancestral lineage.

It is a tool to uncover one's past and avoid a predictable future of adopted social behaviors, reenacted moral beliefs and perpetrated histories.

This work is as much about how a fortune was lost as how it was made. The cards don't lie: sugar cane is behind it all.

Click to see full deck.