For Masters of Ceremonies project – one of the recipients of the 2015 ZUM/IMS Photography Grant –, Bárbara Wagner documents the fusion of reality and fantasy concerning the lives of young MCs of the music movements Brega Funk and Funk Ostentação.

When MCs, DJs and dancers leave the peripherical gigs and take over the mainstream through music videos made exclusively for social media platforms, a strong and profitable fan culture consolidates a practice of appropriation of status’ symbols that historically belong to the upper classes. In touch with the genre’s main music video producers in order to document the gestures and scenes that build up the MC culture in both Brazilian capitals, Bárbara photographs this economy of desire for visibility, consumerism and stardom never experienced before in the country.

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Bárbara Wagner (Brasília, 1980) holds a Master’s degree in visual arts from the Dutch Art Institute (Netherlands). Her photographic work focuses on the representation of the “popular body”, its historic manifestations, strategies of visibility and subversion within contemporary culture and consumer industries.