The warning from educator José Eduardo dos Santos, in his final speech at the VIII International Seminar Arte!Brasileiros, about the imminent closure of the activities of the Acervo da Laje (Salvador), is, at the same time, an example of the precariousness with which cultural initiatives operate on the periphery of official institutions, as well as an echo of resistance of counter-hegemonic narratives and practices, the theme of the meetings that took place on March 20 and 21, in Vitória, Espírito Santo.
Sponsored by EDP, a company that operates in all segments of the electricity sector, the Seminar, in partnership with the Espírito Santo Art Museum (MAES), was held by Atmo and Arte!Brasileiros, through the Law of Incentive to Capixaba Culture (LICC) and the Government of the State of Espírito Santo / State Secretariat of Culture, which understands the role and importance of the public sphere in encouraging and investing in debates on emerging themes, such as decoloniality and the climate crisis.
For the Acervo da Laje, an initiative conceived and led almost 15 years ago by José Eduardo Santos and Vilma Santos, as well as Sertão Negro (Goiânia), the survival of its proposals depends, not without a certain irony, on its insertion into institutional parameters, such as the creation of a CNPJ, as pointed out by Luciara Ribeiro, representative of the Goiás project created by the artist Dalton de Paula, who, not surprisingly, is considering having Luciara as its director, once again in a movement towards institutionalization along the lines of museums and cultural centers inserted in hegemonic structures. The Gordian knot in this complex equation? Obtaining or raising funds that make its activities viable and maintain them, even when they are anti-majoritarian in their artistic and ideological essence.
In interview with Arte!Brasileiros After his speech, Santos stressed that there needs to be a discussion about the redistribution of resources and notices, “so that this money from culture reaches where it needs to go: to artists, cultural agents, the most vulnerable populations, because this will allow Brazilian art to experience a greater diversity of expressions and will favor other circuits of existence.”
Relevant and urgent, Santos' speech summarizes part of the discussions that permeated both the workshops, which took place in the auditorium of the Espírito Santo Art Museum (MAES), and the panels of the Seminar itself, held in the theater of the Casa da Música Sônia Cabral. There was also the sharing of experiences and a proactive tone.
It is worth highlighting that, although they understand the social role of welcoming and protecting the communities in their surroundings, these initiatives and the cultural agents leading them demand recognition – and, of course, remuneration – for the production of thought and artistic experiments that they encourage and promote.
THE PRESENTATION
Curated by Nicolas Soares, Fabio Cypriano (journalist and art critic, director of the Faculty of Philosophy, Communication, Letters and Art at PUC-SP and member of the editorial board of Arte!brasileiros), and Patricia Rousseaux, founder and editorial director of Arte!Brasileiros, the Seminar tables began on the afternoon of 20/3.
Fabricio Noronha, Secretary of Culture of Espírito Santo and President of the National Forum of State Secretaries and Directors of Culture, opened the first night of the Seminar by highlighting the importance of the partnership between the State Government and the Arte!Brasileiros, with Nicolas Soares, curator and director of the Espírito Santo Art Museum (MAES) and managers of other cultural facilities involved in the project, as well as the producer Atmo, on behalf of curator Clara Sampaio.
Soares recalled a series of debates held in 2019, when he was in charge of the Espírito Santo gallery Homero Massena, which he considers to be a gestation, not yet imagined, of the Seminar, when there was a rapprochement with the Arte!Brasileiros, who at the time already demonstrated his interest in the artistic production of Espírito Santo.
Founder and editorial director of Arte!Brasileiros, Patricia Rousseaux highlighted in her opening speech that, during Bolsonaro's obscurantist government, she undertook a mapping of cultural initiatives that resisted the systematic attack of the current power. She found, in states such as Ceará and Espírito Santo, a “public and political intention”, which was not seen in the Rio-São Paulo axis, to continue investing in the arts and education.
It was during this mapping that initiatives such as the Governor's House and the work that was being carried out by MAES were identified. The result was the desire to hold the Seminar in Vitória, opening up a space to discuss the setbacks that we are experiencing on a global scale, in education, culture, science, the environmental struggle and respect for others. For Patricia, these are consequences of the indelible marks left by colonialism, perpetrated and aggravated by neoliberalism.
Next, there was a performance by Glicéria Tupinambá, with videos as a backdrop, intentionally muted, to talk about the historical silencing of the Tupinambá Mantle, a sacred garment used in rituals and ceremonies of her people. A specimen that was in a museum in Denmark was returned to Brazil in 2022, and its claim by the Tupinambá contradicts a narrative, until recently considered historical truth, about the extinction of this people. There is a territory in the south of Bahia that is currently fighting for its demarcation.
During her participation, Glicéria spoke of the importance of art as a space for debate with society, opening dialogues. At the end, she considered that the people who occupied the country left cannons and fortresses here, while the Tupinambás left the world with the “most beautiful, precious and fragile thing”, which is the 400-year-old Tupinambá Mantle, now returned to Tupinambá territory, to a land of the original peoples, which is Rio de Janeiro.
“And I say that we later occupied the Old World. The mark of this is the other cloaks, which are still in Italy, France, Switzerland, Belgium. And bringing everything back doesn’t solve anything. I think beyond the museum. I want to understand our history, which is not just about theft, but also about diplomacy. We have to be careful with what we say, because we can make some mistakes. But it is possible to reverse some narratives. They can all coexist. There is one more, besides theft,” he said.
THE SEMINAR, DAY 1, TABLE 1
Colonial retina
With the title Experiences of the anti-colonial struggle in the arts system: for a healthy, radical and loving counteroffensive, and mediated by Fabio Cypriano, the first panel had as participants Lia D Castro (artist, São Paulo), Marcus Vinicius Sant'Ana (historian, researcher from ES), Guilherme Marcondes (sociologist, anthropologist, UFRJ, SP).
Cypriano introduced the artist from São Paulo, Lia D. Castro, and emphasized that she works across the visual arts. He pointed out that Lia uses prostitution, with boys between the ages of 18 and 25, white and self-declared heterosexual, as a tool for work and research on race, gender and sexuality. Lia then quoted what she had heard from a client: “Prostitution is essential to maintain the social order that is the family standard.” For her, this premise places the work of the prostitute as a colonial proposal for this maintenance to occur.
“As a trans woman and prostitute, I realized that I could bring other narratives regarding sexual practices. My interest was to use prostitution as a form of dialogue to understand who these men are. I start from the question that gives the project its name – Do your children also practice prostitution? – in which I satisfied their sexual desire in exchange for information from most of them – cisgender, white men from the Armed Forces and the police – about how criminology or the Justice system viewed black people and transgender people.
Lia also cited a text entitled “White Ignorance” by Jamaican Charles Mills, in which the philosopher and writer, according to the artist, criticizes how culture as conceived by white people is marked by the absence of information and truth, which would create a memory of a colonial nature. “In other words, white people also go through a colonizing process,” she said. Because of this, Lia’s interest was not in changing her clients’ relationships with her, but with each other. What’s more, inclusion and representation in various sectors of society are not enough. They have become a trap for black people, for example.
“We don’t want to be included in racist environments. Nor assimilated by white people. I then began to understand that I saw the world through the eyes of a white man. A colonial retina that culturally impacts all of us, black people, trans people, people from the outskirts of the city, etc.”, she stated. For Lia, whiteness, like cisgender people, are systems. For her, when we talk about decolonial and anti-hegemonic narratives, it is necessary to break the pacts of those systems. It is not just about discourses, but about practices that must go beyond the borders of museums, for example, and reach other spaces in society.
Invisible stories
The second participant at Table 1 was historian and professor Marcus Vinicius Sant'Ana who, through videos published on Instagram (@santanamarcusvinicius), among other initiatives, reports facts and recovers invisible historical figures, in a similar way to the Tá na História project, by Thiago Simão Gomide from Petrópolis and inspired by the “movement led by Luiz Antônio Simas to see the street as an important aspect of the city”, as Maria Hirszman wrote in issue 70 of Arte!Brasileiros.
Sant'Ana, who also holds a master's degree in Urban and Regional Studies from the Federal University of Espírito Santo (UFES), began his speech by considering that academia does not give the same dimension – or even ownership and hierarchy – to popular demonstrations, the object of its studies and teaching, as to the experience of them. “Before being a historian and researcher of popular culture, I am a samba dancer, who paraded in Unidos de Jucutuquara for the first time when I was 9 years old,” he pointed out.
Instead of talking about the subjects he studies, the historian stated that he would focus on the process of his research. On a slide, Sant'Ana showed reports about the lack of knowledge that people from Espírito Santo have about their own history. And he asked: “Does this mean that people from Espírito Santo don't like their own history?” and “What are the ways that people from Espírito Santo have to learn about their own history?” He commented that the study of the official history of the state was generally limited to memorizing who its governors were after the colonial period and what their respective achievements were.
This would have been the opportunity for him to develop his project, he emphasized that, at Casa da Música Sônia Cabral, the public was in a privileged place, the city's historic center. "When we go to this place, even in our daily lives, do we have contact with this history? Is it told, is it inviting?", he asked. The answer came in the form of another slide: a 200-year-old stone road in Gruta da Onça had been covered with cement, leading to an investigation by the Espírito Santo Public Prosecutor's Office. "This road was built by slaves from the Jucutuquara Farm, who used it, for example, for all kinds of commercial activities and it was cemented during renovations," he explained. By the way: the trail is registered as an archaeological site at the National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage (Iphan).
In another slide, Sant'Ana showed the bronze statue of Dona Domingas, “a black woman, enslaved, who wandered the city collecting paper and wood; it was said at the time that she was over 100 years old,” he said. “What she collected, she sold to support herself. What was left over, she used to order a mass for the souls of the enslaved.”
Located near the Anchieta Palace, the seat of the executive branch of the state of Espírito Santo, the monument had no identification for over 30 years, according to the historian. “Those who pass by have no idea who she was. And I don’t know if you know, but she is in a square named after Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was president of the United States during World War II,” he said. “This is a sign that, even if people are interested in learning about the history of Espírito Santo, they will not find it easy to learn about it.”
Sant'Ana listed below “mitigating acts” of this invisibility – or, at times, distortion – of history, which he applies to his project: videos that tell the history of Espírito Santo; citation of sources; promotion of culture; short duration; visual references of everyday life”. And he emphasized that this history of the state is, in fact, explored, with wonderful research and articles in the History department of UFES. “But I felt the need to have contact with the public. That was when he started recording the videos that he posts on social media.
In the videos, the historian began to promote an “immersion” through “walks that tell the story and black history” of Vitória, as well as “passing through points that express or recall historical facts and characters”. “I couldn’t simply try to pass on information about an 18th century church [Church of Our Lady of the Rosary] in two minutes, without unraveling everything it had in terms of historical knowledge”, he pondered.
“But, in the case of the black history walk, if we have 20 points of interest in mind, in more than 15 of them I will have to deal with imagination because these places no longer exist and there are very few historical references.”
Intersectionalities
In his participation in Panel 1, sociologist and anthropologist Guilherme Marcondes shared reflections on his academic and professional trajectory, highlighting the challenges faced as a black artist and researcher in Brazil. He addressed the intersectionality of oppressions — racism, sexism, classism and homophobia — and how these experiences shaped his perspective and work in the field of contemporary art.
Marcondes discussed his doctoral research in sociology at UFRJ, in which he investigated the paths of insertion and consecration of young artists in the artistic circuit. He emphasized the importance of legitimacy, visibility and recognition for these artists, and how structures of power and domination influence their trajectories.
Furthermore, he highlighted the need to demystify the idea that “anything goes in art”, pointing out the implicit rules that govern the art world and the importance of understanding them for successful insertion. Throughout his speech, Marcondes also shared personal experiences of discrimination and violence, highlighting the resilience needed to overcome such obstacles and achieve one’s academic and professional goals.
He concluded his speech by encouraging young artists to connect with their aesthetic research and seek recognition without submitting to the wishes of galleries or curators, valuing their autonomy and artistic authenticity.
Propositions
This was followed by a debate moderated by Fabio Cypriano, who posed some questions to the participants. Cypriano asked how cultural institutions can effectively incorporate decolonial practices, going beyond symbolic actions. He asked how art can be used as a tool for resistance and social transformation and, finally, what are the challenges faced by artists and researchers in promoting counter-hegemonic narratives in the current artistic landscape.
Marcus Vinicius Sant'Ana addressed the importance of rethinking academic curricula and artistic training programs, proposing the inclusion of Afro-Brazilian and indigenous perspectives as a way to combat Eurocentric hegemony. He also suggested that cultural institutions adopt affirmative action policies and create spaces for active listening for artists and researchers from different backgrounds.
Guilherme Marcondes emphasized the importance of understanding the power structures that permeate the artistic system, highlighting that transformation will only be possible by deconstructing these hierarchies. He encouraged the creation of support and collaboration networks between artists, researchers and institutions committed to decolonial practices, aiming to build a fairer and more representative artistic ecosystem.
The audience asked questions, for example, about the inclusion of peripheral artists and their narratives in large cultural institutions. They also asked questions about how art education can contribute to the deconstruction of Eurocentric paradigms. For Lia D. Castro, it is important to recognize and value artistic practices that emerge from the peripheries, emphasizing that these expressions are fundamental to the construction of a truly inclusive culture.
Lia also highlighted the need for cultural institutions to open up to horizontal dialogues, allowing historically marginalized voices to have space and prominence.
DAY 1, TABLE 2
The challenge of decolonial struggle in institutions
The second panel of the first day of the Seminar had as speakers Deri Andrade (researcher and curator, Inhotim, BH); Luciara Ribeiro (researcher, Sertão Negro, Goiás); José Eduardo Santos (pedagogue, PhD in Public Health, Acervo da Laje, Salvador), with mediation by Nicolas Soares.
Soares began the panel by highlighting the importance of rethinking institutional structures to accommodate historically marginalized narratives. He emphasized the need for concrete actions that go beyond symbolic initiatives, stating that “it is not enough to open up space; it is necessary to transform the structures that perpetuate exclusions.”
Deri Andrade shared his experience in promoting black and indigenous artists. He highlighted the importance of institutional policies that ensure the continued presence of these artists in cultural spaces, stating, in line with Soares, that “inclusion needs to be structured, not episodic.”
Luciara Ribeiro addressed the need to decolonize academic curricula and curatorial practices. She highlighted that “decoloniality is not a trend, but an urgent matter,” emphasizing the importance of recognizing and valuing traditional and ancestral knowledge in cultural institutions.
Finally, José Eduardo Santos spoke about his experience in building community cultural spaces. He emphasized that “culture is a right, not a favor,” and that institutions should act as facilitators, not gatekeepers, to ensure equitable access to cultural production.
The debate at Table 2 reinforced the need for a structural transformation in Brazilian cultural institutions, promoting decolonial practices that recognize and value the diversity of narratives and knowledge present in the country.
The first day of the VIII International Seminar Arte!Brasileiros The event ended with a show by Fabriccio. Born in Vitória (ES), he is a multi-instrumentalist, composer and music producer. His songs explore themes such as affection, masculine sensitivity and spirituality, with influences from literature, cinema and the magic present in everyday life.
THE SEMINAR, DAY 2 – OPENING
the double fracture of modernity
On the afternoon of March 21st, at Casa da Música Sônia Cabral, the second day of the VIII Seminar began at 3:17 p.m. After a brief presentation by Patricia Rousseaux, the opening of the proceedings was given by Martinican writer and thinker Malcom Ferdinand, author of A Decolonial Ecology: Thinking from the Caribbean World (Ubu Editora).
In his book, Ferdinand does. He also introduces the concept of the “double fracture of modernity,” referring to the separation between nature and culture and the disconnect between anti-racist and environmental struggles. This fracture, Ferdinand argues, prevents a comprehensive understanding of ecological injustices, as it disregards the exploitation of nature and the oppression of colonized peoples.
In his presentation, which lasted about 40 minutes, Ferdinand emphasized that he was a black man belonging to the “white French academy, a rare mix, which can explain the context” from which he produces his work. He defended the very notion of planet Earth and the environment as a “colonial construct” and that the way we give meaning to things is not separate from the imaginary we have of them, something that demands what he calls “ecological decolonization.”
As an example, he cited that, from the “clash between the Old and the New World”, with the “discovery” of the Americas by Christopher Columbus, a perspective of “colonial living” was imposed, based on domination and exploitation, in addition to the “conquest of lands, rape, genocide of peoples”, which also includes the practice of naming things and living beings.
The writer brought to light the key concept of his research – the double fracture of modernity – which criticizes the dominant model of environmentalism, which often ignores the colonial and racial dimensions of the ecological crisis. The environmental movement and its idea of preservation are based on a notion of refuge for white men, still linked to the idea of removing indigenous peoples.
The concept of research – involving non-white bodies – was also criticized by Ferdinand for its “extractive” nature, which implies that a researcher investigates a certain subject in a community, for example, reaps the rewards and gives nothing in return. “Who determines what is research, who decides what is or is not science?” he asked.
Ferdinand's proposal is to develop a decolonial ecology that recognizes and values the knowledge and practices of indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples, with ways of life that promote a more harmonious coexistence with the environment. The author emphasizes the importance of integrating anti-racist, anti-colonial and ecological struggles to effectively confront the contemporary environmental crisis.
At the end of his presentation, Ferdinand opened the floor to questions from the audience. Guilherme Marcondes, who had participated in the Seminar the previous evening, asked Ferdinand to elaborate further on his critique of the concept of the Anthropocene, a term used to describe a proposed new geological epoch characterized by humanity’s significant and lasting impact on Earth.
“The Anthropocene is not just a concept, but a history of the world and the Earth, which has its own grammar, its own language and its own hierarchy of values. A concept coined by a particular person, a Dutch scientist who won a Nobel Prize. But what is important is the fact that he is from a colonizing country. So he is listing the countries that were colonized by the Netherlands. And everyone accepts this narrative from a white man. I propose another word, the Negrocene. It would be good for everyone. The decolonial task is to make plurality possible,” argued Ferdinand in his closing speech.
Next, Table 3 took place, entitled Potential miseducation, mediated by Gabriela Leandro Pereira (Gaia) and with the participation of Horrana de Kassia, Gleyce Heitor and Napê Rocha.
As a mediator, Gabriela, an architect from Espírito Santo who teaches at the Federal University of Bahia, proposed a reflection on the concept of “potential miseducation”, questioning traditional teaching and learning structures. She highlighted the importance of educational practices that value ancestral knowledge and community experiences, challenging Eurocentric models of knowledge. Gaia then gave the floor to the panel participants, “very interested in the critical, careful perspective that they have developed in their work and in their actions.
DAY 2, TABLE 3
Refusal and reappropriation
Educator and curator Horrana de Kassia shared her experience at the Moreira Salles Institute, emphasizing the need to rethink cultural institutions from an anti-racist and decolonial perspective. She discussed strategies to make cultural spaces more inclusive, promoting the active participation of historically marginalized communities.
For Horrana, the word “unlearning”, present in the title of the panel, encapsulates an idea of a practice of transformation and he asked his colleagues and the public: “What do we need to unlearn to build justice, especially in the field of arts, education and culture more broadly? He also asked how to conceive of changing cultural institutions and learning spaces so that they are no longer spaces for maintaining violence and lack of memory.
He recalled a monologue by Elisa Lucinda in which the poet, singer and actress talks about her relationship with her son. Horrana then “borrowed” an excerpt from a report about Elisa:
“For Elisa, poetry is like a builder of citizenship. 'I raised my son Juliano based on poetry, and the result is overwhelming, in terms of delicacy, humanity, altruism, solidarity and ethics. Poets raise the flag of peace. It is rare for a poet to be part of a culture of war. Juliano is perhaps responsible for one of the most beautiful verses in my work. He was 4 years old and said: Mom, do you know why I like the fact that you are black? Because it goes with the darkness. So, when it is night, I am not afraid. Everything is mother, everything is darkness'”.
The passage in the report makes Horrana consider unlearning not only a political gesture of resistance, but also of affection, a sensitive practice of reinventing relationships. “And the poetic word is often excluded from institutional spaces. But I have believed that it can and is a fundamental tool for rebuilding forms of belonging and recognition,” he pondered.
For Horrana, unlearning is an ongoing process. Her professional practice, in Espírito Santo and other states, has spanned “multiple spaces” throughout her career, such as MAES, Palácio Anchieta, Galeria Homero Massena, etc. Before working at other institutions, such as the Pinacoteca de São Paulo and, today, the IMS, she “already experienced the museum, and the museum as a space for learning, but also for confrontation.”
“Institutional challenges are not isolated. They are hyperconnected by even broader historical and political processes of which I am a part and participant,” he said. “So, unlearning, from the outset, in my opinion, has to do with recognizing my trajectory, which does not begin in the Rio-São Paulo axis, but is made up of all these experiences, memories, and learnings that I bring here.”
Horrana then recalled her work as a curator of transdisciplinary research and action in a partnership between the Pinacoteca de São Paulo and the Ivani and Jorge Yunes collection, from 2021 to 2022, in which she sought to implement curatorial processes that “challenged the rigid models of these institutions” and proposed other narratives of action and mediation with these spaces. For her, the experience was like a “methodology of occupation”, in the sense of provoking and promoting a review of the spaces based on the works created by the artists involved in the resulting exhibition, Modern Acts, among them Castiel Vitorino Brasileiro and Misty Queiroz.
For her, based on the context of the project, the idea of “unlearning” is a political gesture of refusal and reappropriation of what was taken from us by coloniality,” she said. “Perhaps for [Israeli writer Ariella Aïsha] Azoulay, unlearning is not just an individual process, but a collective practice that allows us to access silenced knowledge and rediscover ways of existing that were erased by the system of power. Unlearning perhaps means replacing one knowledge with another,” without erasing or eliminating the other, she said.
Criticism and caution
Gleyce Heitor Gleyce discussed her work as a curator at Inhotim, highlighting projects that seek to integrate contemporary art and traditional knowledge. She stressed the importance of curatorships that engage with local realities and promote the appreciation of diverse cultural practices.
The educator and researcher considered that, on the morning of that day, she had brought to her workshop “methodologies and ways of doing” linked to her expertise and trajectory, but that that night she would stick to the topic of the table, as something that unites the participants, the proposal of “unlearning”, according to Azoulay, for the construction of new perspectives and new narratives, as well as the thinking of the educator from Pernambuco, Paulo Freire.
Gleyce then said that she wanted to make an invitation to “be cautious with the idea of miseducation”, remembering that that was the International Day Against Racial Discrimination, then presenting a slide in which a banner celebrated the entry of a young man from a quilombola community (Arturos) into a medical course.
“The image shows the importance of education, although we will be criticizing the structures and institutional models of education,” he said. “In Brazil, education is a tool for social mobility, especially for black, poor and indigenous people.
And, although they are spaces for maintaining violence and reproducing order, it is important to read our historical resistance processes with great nuance, being careful not to generalize, because sometimes some spaces also have underlying processes of resistance. Schools can also be spaces for food security or where children stay while their mothers need to work,” he stressed.
crossroads
Born in Vila Velha (ES), Napê Rocha lives in Rio de Janeiro. She brought reflections on her research in Espírito Santo, discussing how artistic practices can serve as tools of resistance and identity affirmation. In her opening speech, she proposed starting from the notion of crossroads “as a critical perspective for the visual arts”, as a sign of transgression or “cosmological, philosophical or intellectual phenomenon”. And, also, starting from the idea that, as in the terreiros, knowledge is not learned, it is incorporated.
Napê presented an untitled work, of shared authorship, from the series Procedures for drawing a crossroads, produced with white pemba chalk lines on black fabric in 2023, at Solar dos Abacaxis, in Rio, in the context of his public program.
“The crossroads is this place of semantics, of syntax, where all speech acts will take place,” he said. “And Exu is the owner of the verb and the spoken word. In the context of the diaspora, there is a language imposed by the colonizer and the one we use to maintain the acts of rapprochement with the land of origin.”
In short, Napê emphasized, for example, the proposition of Pretuguês – according to Lélia Gonzalez, an Africanization of the Brazilian Portuguese language – and Paxubá – a dialect used by the LGBTQIA+ community in Brazil, with roots in African culture and Candomblé –, as well as the figure of Madame Satã – one of the most representative characters of nightlife and Lapa in Rio in the first half of the 20th century, whose name is the intersection of the feminine (madame) and masculine (satã) – the relevance of narratives that emerge from the outskirts and traditional communities, proposing an attentive and respectful listening to this knowledge.
“The crossroads perhaps dares to teach us that these territories are places of habitability, where all kinds of creation and recreation take place, linked to transfigurations and transgressions, simultaneously the center and the periphery, the front and the back,” he stated. “Crossroads are a political gesture, which makes us think about what positions we occupy along these collective and individual paths, transitory and dynamic positions. And how we perform the possibilities of transgression in the face of the policies of control of bodies and subjectivities.”
Together, the speeches of the participants in Table 3 converged on the idea that “potential miseducation” lies in the ability to unlearn oppressive models and open space for more inclusive and plural forms of knowledge. The three participants defended the construction of educational and cultural practices that recognize and value the diversity of experiences and knowledge present in society.
Brazilian
DAY 2, TABLE 4
Reconfigurations
Soon after, Round Table 4 began, with the name Art is the conversation of souls, art feeds life. With mediation by Patricia Rousseaux, the participants were Sandra Gamarra (artist, Peru) – who represented Spain at the 60th Venice Biennale, in 2024, with the Pinacoteca Migrante project, curated by historian Agustín Pérez Rubio – and Luciano Feijão (artist, ES).
In her project in Venice, Sandra explored the concept of “migration,” inverting traditional narratives, bringing to light erased stories and addressing issues such as racism, extractivism and migration. In this context, human and non-human migrants, such as plants and raw materials, become protagonists.
The artist gave a presentation of her work, contextualizing each piece. She highlighted her critique of the way museums, especially those of Western art, represent colonial and Eurocentric narratives.
In her project LiMAC Museo Imaginado de Arte Contemporáneo, held at the Reina Sofía Museum (Madrid, 2023), she proposed the creation of an imaginary museum that confronted these dominant structures. “It is a museum that does not exist, but that could exist. A museum built with works that come from different collections, as if we were creating a fictional museum,” she said.
Sandra reconfigured classic works of European art, inserting indigenous characters, elements of the nature of the Americas and colonial symbols, to question the exclusion of Latin American and indigenous stories in canonical art. “The museum’s fiction is one of neutrality. This supposed objectivity constructs a perspective that excludes other ways of seeing and telling,” she pondered.
The artist uses painting – “I paint as a way of approaching the history of art, but also as a way of criticizing it” – as her main medium, incorporating texts and museographic elements that evoke archives, labels and display cases, deconstructing the idea of the neutrality of museums.
In this way, it proposes a critical reinterpretation of cultural institutions and their forms of memory construction, inviting the public to imagine new modes of representation that include other voices and narratives. In short, its production has a strong political and historical basis, addressing themes such as colonialism, cultural appropriation and historical erasure.
“What interests me is how art builds a visual memory that often erases, silences or distorts other memories,” he argued. “I want the public to ask themselves why they look the way they do, why a work is there and not somewhere else, why something is considered art and something else is not.”
The closing session was led by artist Luciano Feijão from Espírito Santo. The artist mentioned a project he has been working on recently: “My current research focuses on a kind of anti-anatomy, an attempt to create an image of the black body that is not based on traditional systems of knowledge, such as science, art and education,” he said.
Feijão criticized the way in which black bodies have historically been subjected to classificatory, exotic or utilitarian gazes, both in art and in science and education:
“The history of the representation of the black body is a history of dissection — literal and symbolic. It was necessary to open, catalogue, study, classify. My work tries to escape this, to propose another way of seeing.”
Luciano then proposes a sensitive and ethical approach to the image, which subverts the objectifying gaze: “I want an image that moves away from the logic of exposure and approaches presence. That is not about showing the black body, but about listening to it, accompanying it, being with it.”
Feijão seeks to create a new visual and conceptual vocabulary that does not reproduce the erasure or spectacularization of black corporeality: “I do not want to offer ready-made visual answers. Perhaps my work is about what cannot be seen, or about what refuses to be seen in the expected way,” concluded Feijão, who then presented a video that already focuses on his research.
ROSANA PAULINO
Artist Rosana Paulino (SP), who was unable to participate in the Seminar due to scheduling conflicts, recorded a video for Arte!Brasileiros, which was shown after the last table closed.
In his speech, he considered that, since he began in the visual arts, around 30 years ago, he did not understand his thinking and practices as properly counter-hegemonic.
Her involvement with the craft came, she said, from “an absolutely gigantic need” to talk about who she was, discuss where she came from and question why “we don’t notice black people, or didn’t notice them, in this Brazilian art environment, given that this is a country where officially 58% of the population already identifies as black,” she argued.
Rosana also questioned why art made by minority people has always been considered naïve, folkloric art, “let’s say, of lesser stature”. Only after a long time, the artist continued, did she realize “this place of counter-hegemony”.
“For me, what mattered least was thinking about a political structure in this sense. At the time, I would say it was out of desperation. The way I began my research came largely from the fact that, at the beginning of my career, I was not familiar with the classical techniques that we learn at university.”
Representation
Rosana considered that she always wanted to look at her roots and that, since she was a child, she had a passion for a photo album of her family and wanted to “use those people, those images that she didn’t see within the history of art”.
“I’ve never been much of a painter. Even today, people say that I paint, but I think it’s more in the realm of drawing. I know how to sew, I learned how to do it when I was a child,” he continued. “Combining this technical aspect with an observation of the environment around me, for example, a work emerged that I consider to be the first of my career, Parede da Memória.”
In this work, Rosana gathers fragments of old photographs of her family glued onto fabric to produce a series of amulets, amulets similar to the ones she saw above the front door of her parents' house. "No one would pass under one of these elements without being touched, without having their curiosity aroused," she recalls. Fabric and stitching also appeared years later in Rosana's works, such as the installation Assentamento and Atlântico Vermelho.
Rosana also argued that, as an artist, she has always sought out everyday practices that were relegated, that were “considered inferior,” such as pottery, treated with primitive firing, “like indigenous people did, like black people did, and I went back to look for that tradition.” In more recent series, such as Senhora das Plantas, the artist started with an “investigation into the feminine, this feminine psychology that we don’t find. Looking at issues like the eternal, the sacred, we see that there is even a god from the Arctic, right? But there was no black [goddess]. And I decided to think about this psychology for Brazil through my surroundings, through the plants, which I love.”
Education
Rosana also highlighted the role of education, especially teachers who have used the work of Afro-Brazilian artists. “From this, children will grow up with a different reference. In the anti-racist, anti-colonial, anti-hegemonic struggle, this is absolutely fundamental, because you will only disrespect the rights of those who are not considered human,” she argued.
Finally, the artist believes that progress has been made, that we cannot only think about the contemporary world, because in the past many people helped us along these paths, bringing up these issues even before they were framed as anti-colonial or counter-hegemonic. And she emphasized: there is still a long way to go.
“The main thing is that we have people from these subalternized groups in spaces of power. We need people in museums, in cultural institutions, black people, women, indigenous people, people who have been subalternized. We need to have these people in decision-making spaces too.”
The VIII International Seminar Arte!Brasileiros The event ended with a performance, also on the stage of Casa da Música Sônia Cabral, by Douglas Germano (SP), a composer and guitarist who has been active in the music scene since the 1980s. With five albums released — Duo Moviola (2009), Orí (2011), Golpe de Vista (2016), Escumalha (2019) and Partido Alto (2021) —, his work encompasses samba and its variations. He was the musical director of Cia. Teatro X, writing soundtracks for nine shows, including Calígula (2002), which earned him the Shell Award for Best Original Score (2003).
WORKSHOPS
Part of the Seminar's program, the workshops took place on the mornings of March 20th and 21st, in the auditorium of the Espírito Santo Art Museum, where the inaugurations of the installation Wifi Grátis (or Intromisssão), by Carlo Schiavini & Elvys Chaves, at the Espírito Santo Art Museum, curated by Clara Sampaio and Nicolas Soares, curator and director of MAES, and the exhibition Abstrações, with works from the institution's collection, also took place.
Deri Andrade, creator and responsible for Projeto Afro – a platform for mapping and disseminating black artists – and curator of the Inhotim Brumadinho Institute, MG), gave a presentation entitled “Strategies in decolonial curatorships”.
With mediation by Ananda Carvalho, curator and professor at the Department of Visual Arts at the Federal University of Espírito Santo, Andrade discussed how research projects and exhibitions have been transformed by literacy against structural racism and the fight for diversity.
Andrade recalled the exhibition project “Abdias Nascimento and the Museum of Black Art,” which Inhotim held between 2021 and 2024, in partnership with the Institute of Afro-Brazilian Studies and Research (Ipeafro). Divided into four parts, the exhibition program was a shared curatorial action, an unprecedented model in the history of the institution.
A case study of the institutionalization of an independent initiative, brought to light by Andrade, was the exhibition Encruzilhadas da Arte Afro-Brasileira, an offshoot of the Afro Project that brought together, between December 2023 and March 2024, at CCBB SP, works by artists such as Arthur Timótheo da Costa, Maria Auxiliadora, Rubem Valentim and Mestre Didi and Lita Cerqueira.
On March 21, it was Gleyce Heitor, director of education at Inhotim, who led the workshop “For an interdisciplinary articulation in art and education”, mediated by professor Margarete Sacht Góes, curator of the educational program at Galeria de Arte Espaço Universitário (GAEU/UFES).
An interdisciplinary dialogue between culture and education is increasingly imperative. Art has been a fundamental link in the construction of reflections on the subject, its development and its relationship with the environment. The workshop discussed two cases of implementation of these strategies. ✱
