Page 88 - ARTE!Brasileiros #60

ENGLISH VERSION FOR FREEDOM

Brazilian production. I then started to of the other, of beings, of fauna and flora. We university, for example, the questions that
walk a different path, thinking about the have to look at this construction that was interested her were what it meant to be a
question of blackness.” made and that is still used to justify a false woman, black, on the outskirts of a city
Educator, PhD in Visual Arts from the inferiority of the black population. And we like São Paulo, listening to Racionais mC’s.
School of Communications and Arts of the have no way of thinking about the country “So my exchanges are much more related
University of São Paulo (ECA-USP), Rosana is a without taking this into account, sweeping to observing this environment than looking
specialist in engraving from the London Print it under the rug.” at other artists. Right away I saw that it was
Studio, in London, and holds a bachelor’s There is also an element of the History of not my universe. I remember that once I even
degree in engraving, also from ECA-USP. She Art in Brazil that makes her uncomfortable: tried to make a drawing related to orixás,
was also a scholarship recipient of the Ford the idea of a vocation for geometry, which but it was absolutely terrifying. I was not

Foundation Scholarship Program, from 2006 she considers imposed on the country by an raised within this world. And so I started
to 2008, and CAPES, from 2008 to 2011. In international environment, without taking looking for my way.”
2014, she received a scholarship to reside into account the continental dimensions Faced with the growing reactionary
at the Bellagio Center, of the Rockefeller we have, with so many variants. wave of the extreme right, in Brazil and
Foundation, in Bellagio, Italy. Currently, in “I have nothing to do with it”, complains around the world, which attacks blacks
addition to participating in Venice, she is Rosana, author of a series ironically called and indigenous peoples, among other
present in exhibitions in Austin and Chicago, Geometria à Brasileira. “This so-called minority groups, Rosana believes that
USA, and in Wolfsburg, Germany. geometric vocation is something limited to a resistance on the part of artists, in
Her interest in biology – through books very small group of artists, mostly from Rio particular, is still very incipient. She
on “the forms of cognition, how thinking is and São Paulo. And black Brazilian artists points out that the visual arts, in a country
elaborated, this area linked to thinking and are starting to revisit this, challenging, like Brazil, are still a very restricted niche.
the brain”, she says – has not only continued questioning this conception of the country’s But the internet has been of great value.
over the years, but also informs her artistic art history,” she says. “There are many channels that are
production. It is not for nothing, says Rosana, Another element dear to Rosana Paulino’s expanding the issue of visuality, the claims
that she researches and develops in her production is territoriality. She considers, for of black people. What I get from students
work the issue of pseudoscience and example, that practically no other black artist and professors is impressive. And it’s
scientific racism. has influenced her career, not only because a growing trend. People want to see
“I naturally became interested in the idea of of the lack of circulation of knowledge about themselves represented, as constituents
visuality and black visibility, of representation, them. “I knew something about Rubem of history, they want to know who came
especially photography. This is where the Valentim, Emanoel Araújo, but from an early before them. The reactionary wave is to
documentation of traveling artists also age I knew that I couldn’t follow these trails be expected, especially here, where the
comes in, for example. My series ¿História because I wasn’t from Bahia”, she ponders. repression is brutal. But this production
Natural?, for example, the name says it all. The artist says she “changes a lot of black artists that rescues ancestry is
Nothing less natural than the classification with her environment.” When she was at extremely healthy”, he concludes.

82