Rosana Paulino and the Art of Refazimento: Reconfigurations of the Black Female Body in the Land of Racial Democracy

• In Event: This is America: Re-creating Afro-Diasporic Contemporary Literary and Cultural Discourses

Abstract

My presentation focuses on the visual art by Rosana Paulino, particularly her artistic project “Assentamento(s)” (2012-2013). Paulino’s series in “Assentamento(s)” (in English, “settlement”) re-inscribes the black female body into the historical narrative of Brazil, complicating long-established notions of “brazilianess”—one that erases or denies blackness while exploiting the labor, sexual and cultural capacities of the black body. By using art techniques and materials that combine lithography, digital printing, drawing, sewing, video, and sculpting, Paulino develops a multi-layered artistic assembly that explores the limitations of the historical archives in highlighting both the struggles and agency of black women within Brazilian society. Paulino’s “Assentamento(s)” invites us to contemplate the black female body beyond the silences and oppression imposed by legacies of colonialism. Following her invitation, my study is inspired by Saidiya Hartman’s method of “critical fabulation” to unpack the multiple meanings of Paulino’s “Assentamento”.

Author

• Flávia Santos de Araújo, Smith College