Casa 1, a site of LGBTQ memory in São Paulo, Brazil

Abstract

The NGO Casa 1 was conceived as a housing project for runaway and homeless LGBTQ youths. Launched in 2017, it has expanded into a complex that includes housing, culture, education and health services. Together with this infrastructure of care, Casa 1 has created several strategies to promote LGBTQ memory that have made it a new site of memory in São Paulo. Through field research, interviews and analysis of institutional material, this article presents the NGO’s memory strategies in four directions: memorialisation as a symbolic mechanism of gratitude, exemplarity and denunciation, and the safeguarding of a LGBTQ memory collection. We argue that, through these dimensions, Casa 1 has consolidated itself as a site of memory even considering its short existence, showing that the establishment of a site of memory is not a passive consequence of time and historical events, but can be precipitated and induced, through intensity and intentionality.