Artist Talk with Sy Gomes | Nuit Blanche Toronto 2025

We’re thrilled to host the Brazilian artist (she/her) for an artist talk at Underscore Projects on the evening of September 30th. Sy will be in Canada for the very first time, presenting a commissioned work at Nuit Blanche Toronto 2025. Her photographic and soundscape installation investigates the Travesti experience through multiple languages, blurring gender boundaries and reimagining how identity can be expressed.

Join us for an in-depth conversation where Sy will share insights into her creative practice and the making of her Nuit Blanche installation. She’ll share thoughts on her process, experimentation, and the intersections of sound, image, and identity. Following this presentation, she’ll be joined for a conversation with Renata Azevedo Moreira (she/her), who’s leading the South Etobicoke Nuit Blanche exhibition . Renata is a Brazilian author, researcher, and curator based in Tkaronto and São Paulo. Queer, feminist, and postcolonial gestures inspire her curatorial practice, which centers on collaboration and inclusivity by striving to create space for connections between QBIPOC artists in different stages of their careers.

The talk will last an hour and will be followed by a short Q&A. Please stay longer to meet Sy and listen to her especially curated playlist!

📅 Date & Time: Tuesday, September 30, 6:30pm to 9 pm

Talk: 7pm-8pm

📍 Location: Underscore Projects 1468 Dundas St West, 2nd floor, Toronto M6J 1Y6

💫 Language: English

🎟 Free, but spots are limited – save yours via the link in our bio.

Don’t miss this rare opportunity to hear from Gomes during her one-week stay in Toronto, ahead of her Nuit Blanche exhibition at Humber College Lakeshore Campus!

About the Artist

Sy Gomes is a black travesti born in Eusébio, a municipality situated near the city of Fortaleza, capital of the state of Ceará, in the Northeast of Brazil. Dissolving the frontiers between humanity and nature, she has been making art for over seven years, integrating music, performance, video, photography, ritualistic installation, design and cultural production in her practice. With a history degree from the Federal University of Ceará (UFC), she is currently pursuing a Masters in UFC’s Postgraduate Program in Arts (PPGArtes).

About Sy Gomes’s Project

Travesti is a Latin-American gender identity under the queer umbrella that carries a specific local meaning and impossible exact translation. The term was born in Brazil, a country that has consistently had, for the past 10 years, the largest number of trans people murdered in the world. Thus, instituting a methodology to maintain a life that is constantly under threat is critical. “See Me From a Distance” is an ongoing series, which has previously been presented as billboards, posters, and flyers. For this edition, Gomes collaborates with the artist KAYA to create an environmental soundscape, expanding the visual language into the immersive realm of sound to accompany five roadside signs with photographic and textual material. Non-literal translations into several languages create space for questioning and transmuting trans and travesti memories. In the audio, different narratives suggest a disruption of logical thinking, introducing the audience to an experience of gender rupture typical of Brazil.

Host or Publisher Underscore Projects