The seminar will focus on how Afro-Brazilian artists have addressed questions related to colonialism, enslavement, and racism over the last three decades, confronting the ongoing marginalization and oppression of African descendants in Brazilian society. Among others, we will focus on works by Ayrson Heráclito, Jaime Lauriano, Goya Lopes, Marepe, Aline Motta, Eustáquio Neves, Antonio Obá, Rosana Paulino, Priscila Rezende, and Tiago Sant’Annna. In their works, we find a specific reflection on the architecture and material culture created to transport women and men from Africa to Brazil and to enslave them and their descendants between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Other artworks refer to the architecture developed in response to these circumstances: spaces and buildings transformed or invented through daily resistance in the not-so-rare uprisings, as well as in the ongoing struggle for freedom after official emancipation, which continued to be hindered by segregation, marginalization, and oppression of African descendants in Brazil. These artists artistically rewrite history by addressing the silence surrounding this architecture, aiming to reform and decolonize Brazil.
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Seminar 1
Mon, May 12, 20255:30 pm to 7:30 pm -
Seminar 2
Tue, May 13, 20255:30 pm to 7:30 pm -
Seminar 3
Wed, May 14, 20255:30 pm to 7:30 pm -
Public Lecture: Afro-Brazilian Spaces of Reinvention
Thu, May 15, 20256:00 pm
Professor Roberto Conduru was born in Brazil. He received a B.A. in architecture from Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro and a Ph.D. in history from Universidade Federal Fluminense in Brazil. Before coming to SMU, he was professor of art history and theory at the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, and visiting professor of art history in the Meadows School in 2014. Conduru’s research addresses modern and contemporary art and architecture in Brazil, with an emphasis on Afro-Brazilian art, as well as Constructivist art and architecture. His interests also encompass global art history and current debates in the arts of Latin America and the trans-Atlantic world.
Conduru’s published works include Art in Brazil in the 19th Century (Barléu, 2020; with A. Martin Chillón), Axé Bahia – The Power of Art in an Afro-Brazilian Metropolis (Fowler Museum UCLA, 2018; co-edited with P. Polk, R. Johnson, and S. Gledhill), Architecture Agouda au Bénin et au Togo (MRE, 2016; with M. Guran), Carl Einstein e a arte da África (EdUERJ, 2015; co-edited with E. O’Neill), Pérolas Negras – Primeiros Fios (EdUERJ, 2013), Arte Afro-Brasileira (C/Arte, 2007), and the monographs Frida Baranek (Barléu, 2014), Paulo Pasta (Barléu, 2013), Coleção Gilberto Chateaubriand, 1920-1950 (Barléu, 2011), Jorge Guinle (Barléu, 2009), Willys Castro (Cosac & Naify, 2005) and Vital Brazil (Cosac & Naify, 2000). Conduru’s current research considers art, slavery and the fight for freedom in Brazil since the sixteenth century. Conduru’s project addresses contemporary artworks that reflect on those historical processes that have affected sites, things, bodies and minds in Africa, Brazil and Latin America. His work also considers the body and material artifacts in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, in the practices and cultures of slavery in Brazil, and in the processes of resistance and emancipation by Africans and their Afro-Brazilian descendants.