Between remembering and forgetting

This paper draws on two Brazilian projects, ‘Ditamapa’ and ‘Sobre o rio’ [‘About/Above the River’], that operate in the temporalities and spatialities of the city and connects them with the work of toponymy; that is, place-naming as a way of producing memory. The two initiatives were conceived by Brazilian researchers and visual artists to question, in different ways, the intersection between memory and visibility in public, urban, and everyday spaces. We analyse the act of naming streets as a narrative which intersects with institutionalized memory, inscribing power relations and socialized memories, causing a certain friction in temporalities of the city and in the memory that is linked to official toponymy. As noted, both of the projects analysed trigger memory in order to de-establish official narratives and memories through urban practices that promote sustainability in social spheres.