Texts

Alex Castro | Writer | Brazil considers itself a good and peaceful nation if only because it forgets having been one of the greatest slave economies of all times. Many times, a clear conscience helps one sleep soundly, or, in our case, it is a sheer lack of memory. /// African slavery in the Americas … Read More

Martina Ahlert | Anthropologist | In the numerous possible ways of understanding the world (or worlds), there are people who are never alone. In their journeys, battles, celebrations and daily experiences, they mobilise relationships with other human and non-human beings, establishing partnerships, caring exchanges and bonds. They are equally touched by these encounters and affections, … Read More

Qiana Mestrich | Visual Artist and Writer | The enduring legacy of slavery on Black women’s bodies in the Americas has notably resulted in some of the lowest rates of breastfeeding and even worse, a crisis of infant and maternal death. Persistent racial disparities today (particularly in healthcare) are the ripple effects of untold physical, … Read More

Temi Odumosu | Art HIstorian and Researcher | There is a burden of/in images that I want to unfold.  Ways in which looking at the remains of slavery and colonialism make us dependent on, even implicated in, the same pain that brought them into being. The situation is very complex. Enslaved people originally entered visual … Read More

Lilia Moritz Schwarcz | Historian and Anthropologist |  Records verifying the existence of enslaved men and women in São Paulo date back to the beginning of colonisation. However, in the 16th and 17th centuries, and for much of the 18th century, the presence of Africans was immaterial, mostly because of widespread multi-crop agriculture for subsistence … Read More

Júlio César Medeiros da Silva Pereira “Take off your shoes, for the ground you tread is sacred.” – Exodus, 3:5 This epigraph reminds of Moses’ call on Mount Sinai that would change the history of the Semites for all time. I cite this passage as a reverence to the room where we now stand. Even … Read More