Decolonial Love, Antropofagia, and the 'Sound of Kuduro' (in making) :
Performative lecture where I aim to dismantle the ''art plantations of modernity'' and make visible the entanglements and continuities of colonialism in the present.
Following Junot Diaz I ask the questions such as: How can we overcome the horrible legacy of slavery and find decolonial love? Can two broken by coloniality of power selves really love each other?
The Antropophagic Banquet (2016) :
The Antropophagic Banquet is a screening and discussion with decolonial agenda
that presents ten artistic positions in format of short videos and a series of
drawings flying-in from Buenos Aires.
It is triggered by ´antropofagia´
and imagined as a platform for future collabs.
Antropofagia means colonialism and
not cannibalism. The event sets to trace its presence around the globe. Since
coloniality permeates life in its entirety, The Antropophagic Banquet is an
offering for the public to think and act upon its present-day forms such as
racism, exploitation and disposession through ´eating and digestion´of artworks
by transnational artists. As someone said before: "Coloniality is not
over. It is all over."
#Dame los Poderes (upcoming) :
DlP activates the potential of Haitian revolution in order
to dismantle the continuities of colonialism in the present such as
racialization,exploitation and disposession and redefine current migration
waves by positioning them in relation to slave trade and future uprisings.
Slave revolution started as a voodoo ceremony and took the
masters by surprise- Haiti was the most prosperous colony in the world and
Christianity the only valuable set of beliefs therefore any kind of resistance
was unthinkable. This powerful moment in history, when slaves
organized themselves inside the plantations to fight against oppression and
capitalist enterprise on their own terms, radically shifted the way things were
supposed to be. How can we reenact it in the present- in the art context and
beyond?
Border Dwellers (upcoming) :
Border Dwellers is a platform on art and knowledge
influenced by pan-Africanism, Negritude and Afro-Futurism done in collab with
artists, theorists, and activists (many of them migrants, refugees and exiles).
It has Haitian slave uprising as a backdrop and connects to current struggles
around the world like the movement #Black Lives Matter.
Shape-shifting in nature, Border Dwellers will appear along
the route as online platform mixing theory, poetry and creative stuff, and
culminate in art event. Various artistic and theoretical positions will be
presented together, creating an open, relational and safe space for action, open to proposals on new
ways of socio-political organization inspired by indigenous knowledges, often developed
as a response to oppression and colonialism and practiced for centuries.
I Salt and Pepper My Mango (upcoming) :
Dear Tejal,
I wish to spend some time
at Balcao experimenting on a new project that doesn't have shape yet.
I'd like to depart from my life-experience, having to reincarnate
various times as a queer person, constantly migrating between worlds,
and a recent passing away of a friend and lover. She, whose gender
wasn't easy to grasp, and whose whole life was a sharp political
statement of resistance, reminds on Escrava Anastacia and other powerful
women on their way to liberation.
I'd love to spend a month
playing, researching, and collaborating with the community, as well as
interacting with garden plants and insects around the issues of life,
vitality,
vibrations, co-existence, and other possible worlds. I think Goa would
be a perfect
setting for that. It may sound strange, but I feel like I've been there
before.
Let me know if this would be possible.
All the best,
Rosana
research images:
fka twigs + forensic architecture
Zami (upcoming):
Zami is a Carriacou word meaning women who work together as
friends and lovers. It is also a live event and platform on decolonial love
that abruptly mixes art and theory to discuss the legacy of ''poet, feminist,
lesbian, mother and warrior'' Audre Lorde and black feminism in relation to liberation
and healing. Throughout this journey, Zami stumbles upon triangular
slave trade, marroon settings, art plantations, and slave revolutions.
image: ruby amanze
One World in Relation (2013-15) :
A research, exhibition and publishing project with decolonial agenda digging on issues such as tropicality, colonialism and its resonancies, (unbearable) labor conditions and (forced) migrations.
image: Pascal Martine Thayou
Maison Tropicale (2014) :
Proposal for art space and collaborative platform on Sao Vicente island in Cape Verd, triggered by a theft of African modernist house by Western art collector.
image: Annabel Gueredrat&Henri Tauliaut
Kusmi Tea Sweet Love (unrealized) :
In the midst of a black market, a town in town, a buissness spot with
unlimited traffic, where micro economy based on exchange of all kind of
goods except artworks, is performed daily by immigrants from India,
Pakistan, China and Guiné Bissau. Thieves? Merchants? Speculators?
In the centre of Lisbon a small narrow street, where the red letters on
ringbells are exclusively in chinese. Some of the apartments, however
difficult to say which, host illegal chinese restaurants that differ
little from common homes in order to hide their activity. The
owners/cooks don't speak neither portuguese nor english and the clients
choose from untranslated menus.
Located on the frontier with moorish and red light district, the zone is
also known for delicious indian sweets of many colours.
This project is archived on E-flux
