In a previous art project, Red Square Project (2005/2013), Piola wanted to turn a public square within the city red by adjusting its urban vegetation. The artist initiated the Red Square Project in a recently gentrified neighbourhood in São Paolo, overhauled by the local government in order to reduce crime, drug trafficking, and prostitution. The goal behind Piola’s projects was, on the one hand, to remember the now-whitewashed former scene of drugs and violence and, on the other hand, to look back at a more contested part of Brazilian history: the repression that existed under the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964–1985).
The site that Piola chose for his red square was in front of a building that once housed the Department of Social and Political Order, the government institution responsible for the persecution of ‘enemies of the state’. When Piola requested permission for his project, the authorities denied it.
The artist’s response was to initiate another public art project, Tutoia Operation, to revive a concealed memory of dictatorial state oppression, this time adopting a slightly different strategy. Instead of introducing it as art, Piola presented himself as a gardener with a plan to upgrade the neighbourhood. Plant by plant he exchanged the green vegetation with red foliage. Through this slow and disguised gesture the artist subtly attributed the location with a new and disquieting semantic meaning.
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