Golgotha

substantive

1.1

a hill near Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified; Calvary

2.2

place of suffering or sacrifice

Contemporary Brazil brings this double meaning of Golgotha: a territory that is a death machine, but also the place of sacrifice, resurrection and redefinition of meanings.

The project attempts to understand the different faces of evangelization in the country, observing how evangelicals appropriate and incorporate symbols, images, instruments and other aspects of ancestral Brazilian religions and popular culture.

Many of these appropriations challenge the notion of “purity” and “sacredness.” What is the genuine Brazilian particularity that shapes this evangelical expansion?

Each year, 14,000 evangelical churches are opened in Brazil, and by 2032 the number of evangelicals in the country will be greater than that of Catholics. This growth is reflected in institutional spaces, in the legislative and executive branches, in schools and in the media. This is one of the most important mass phenomena of the century, very little known by the international community.

This project reveals different layers of the same faith in a very diverse and complex country. It looks at where people place their faith, sometimes their money, and often their anxieties and ambitions.