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Corpos d’água" (2019): An Exploration of Environmental Racism and the Black Woman's Relationship with Water
In Event: Racial Relations and the Environment: Territory, Memory, Ancestry, and Cosmologies of Care
Abstract
"Corpos d’água" (2019) is an artistic performance delving into (SILVA: 2020) through poetry and corporeal expression, reflecting on environmental racism. It transcends racial and class boundaries, focusing on the connection between water and Black women. This highlights the draining of dreams and lives from Black bodies by the State—a modus operandi of whiteness rooted in colonial legacies. This ongoing cycle of violence affects marginalized social groups, marked by race, gender, sexuality, territory, and class, depriving them of access to water resources and basic sanitation, entrenched within institutional frameworks.
The research spans art, anthropology (social sciences), law, and literature. Employing ethnography and cartography, it examines the social dynamics shaping the environmental landscape in São Paulo, specifically the Guaicuri favela, adjacent to the critical "Billings" reservoir, and Guarujá, known as the "Pearl of the Atlantic," focusing on the Cachoeirinha favela within a mangrove area. These territories converge concerning the water dimension, environmental racism, and violence against Black bodies.
The intersection of race and gender is foundational for contemplating environmental issues. Water and the Black body are portrayed as boundaries—living entities curtailed by violence. Black women in marginalized communities endure selective water scarcity and rationing, perpetuated by silent environmental racism rooted in colonial legacies and patriarchal structures.
The experimental video and photographs are part of my artistic performance "Corpos d’água," developed alongside my research on environmental racism (BULLARD: 1990) and (PACHECO: 2012), exclusively created for an international artistic/academic conference. It represents memories, oral tradition, poetry, time, and space—a profound exploration of the interaction between the Black body and water. Ancestry and Afro-pessimism (PINHO, 2021) and (Smith, 2015) coexist, navigating the currents of the Black body, with the environmental setting as the missing link connecting them.