Rosana Paulino e Tiago Sant’Ana. Localizando o “sustento” da escravidão na arte contemporânea afro-brasileira

Abstract

Contemporary Afro-Brazilian artists Rosana Paulino and Tiago Sant’Ana use slavery as a source of inspiration or “sustenance” for their creative production. This “sustenance” of slavery holds a dual meaning in these two artists’ work in that they each explore a different form of “nourishment” related to that historical era. Paulino focuses on the enslaved wet nurse, whose breast milk went to feed white infants, while Sant’Ana uses sugar as an artistic medium and references the role of enslaved African labor on the country’s northeastern plantations. For Paulino, the enslaved wet nurse is a way to connect herself with other black women who have also been marginalized owing to their race and gender. For Sant’Ana, the use of sugar is a means to approximate himself to the history of forced black labor and continued racial inequality in his home region of Bahia. As such, the artists are more interested in using their work to inspire dialogue about Brazil’s contemporary racial issues as they are in exploring the past. Both artists mine Brazil’s visual archive of slavery as part of their artistic process. In incorporating 19th-century prints and photographs of different types of black labor in their 21st-century interpretations, they highlight the ubiquitous presence of slavery-era visuals in contemporary society. However, artists must take a more pointed approach than solely using historical images to effectively critique sustained social disparities. Therefore, in utilizing sites with historical ties to slavery in a provocative manner, Paulino and Sant’Ana strategically use space as a key element to underscore persistent racial inequality.