We have witnessed an increase in recent years in research that has relied on mapping as a tool to understand the broader landscape of the Arts and its reach in different parts of Brazil. As part of this trend, Project Afro envisions surveying as both an action and a result. As such, it yields critical paths for rethinking the very foundation of the Arts. Curator Deri Andrade began conducting his research in 2016 with a goal to contribute to broadening the field of Afro Brazilian art and the histories of the Arts in the country. What began as a one-man investigation resulted in a free-for-all digital platform. Project Afro was officially launched as a website in 2020, bringing to the visitor a robust list of references by Black artists, scholars and researchers, curators, and educators. The foundation stone for the project was to raise awareness on initiatives and works, identifying in the database the country or city in which they are based.

Since the launching, we have succeeded in introducing artists whose work are relevant to Brazilian art, particularly to contemporary art. We have also contributed to supporting dissemination and the systemic network that connects the works, their makers, and thinkers. One of the missions that the project took upon itself has been to give visibility to agents based in regions normally disregarded. By doing so, Project Afro has both assertively stated the significant presence of artists and artistic work and underscored how unknowledgeable the Art world is of the productions coming from less privileged parts of the country. Even our own project must continue to improve its efforts to map people based outside of the Southeastern region of Brazil. An important step toward achieving our goals has been the support of Instituto Ibirapitanga since 2023.

After surveying Black artists, we conducted an additional mapping, this time focusing on Black curators. Launched in 2020 by Project Afro, the Mapeamento de curadores e curadoras negros, negras e indígenas brasileiros (Mapping Black and Indigenous Curators in Brazil) is the result of multiple partnerships. I have conceptualized the survey, while the Rede de Pesquisa e Formação em Curadoria de Exposição (Alliance for Research and Learning for Curatorship in the Arts) and Trabajadores de Arte (Art’s Workers) has served as partner. Both initiatives are the result of collective work pushing to question the modus operandi of the system of art. Between 2019 and 2020, I led data research in collaboration with many allies who shared my discomfort with the lack of representation of Black and Indigenous curators working in art spaces. I am certain of the impact brought by this mapping, since we have witnessed an increase in the number of curators of color. The survey initially identified 76 Black curators and 20 Indigenous curators. At the time of its publication, these were expressive numbers in the Brazilian context. They directly challenged the rhetoric of scarcity that was being freely employed by the Art world. Project Afro proved this narrative to be a fallacy. Curators of color in Brazil not only exist, but also are actively proposing different perspectives and sharing knowledge around art and curatorship.

The research conducted for the mapping had an additional ramification in the video “Narrativas e Territórios em disputa: Investigações sobre os sistemas de arte” (Contending Narratives and Territories: Investigating the System of Art), a 2022 audiovisual material created for the Programa Atos Modernos at the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, in partnership with the Coleção Yunes and curator Horrana de Kássia Santoz. The video captured visitations to the ateliers of artists Ramo, Nalu Rosa, Renan Teles, Jair Guilherme, and Carol Itzá. These artists have built a uniquely independent network that operates away from the institutional, hegemonic centers of the Arts in São Paulo. The premise of the video is to reflect on the artistic creations coming from the edges of a city that has been arranged on the basis of modernity. The artists and researchers featured in the video are based in areas of São Paulo that are seen as not-belonging, practically impenetrable to the eyes of contemporary Art. Made in partnership with filmmaker Paulinho Sacramento, the video was motivated by a desire to both listen to and bring visibility to these workers in the Arts. The belief that resistance must be a collective endeavor guided my perspective.

The practice of mapping represents a crucial tool for identifying innovative methodologies and observing the ways in which Black art-makers have been creatively moving. It has meanings beyond following the shifts in the system, connecting experiences, registering disagreements and proximities in the field. My approach to such practice does not associate with “thematic lists” that typically flood the press and social media channels, since they rely on hierarchizing and speculation, and are only committed to individually highlighting certain players or topics. I am in disagreement with such a perspective. On the contrary, mapping as a practice has helped us to orchestrate ways of observing that visualize projects and actions located away from the economic and artistic center of Brazil, work that has the potential to bring about change. We are interested in being in conversation with these alternative networks, as well as with the people who have invested in a collective, innovative way of moving collaborative processes, people whose goal is the collective production of art.

Two recently-launched projects come to mind when we picture such a landscape. The first is Sertão Negro Ateliê e Escola de Artes, located in Goiânia, Central-West Region of Brazil, and directed by artist Dalton Paula. The second is ateliê residência Irê: arte, praia e pesquisa, located in Salvador, in the Northeastern coast, and managed by Rebeca Carapiá. Both projects show that one can build new organizations and develop different artistic views founded on collective action as a form of caring, sharing, and healing, free spaces for artists to create freely, individually or in partnership. Leading both organizations are artists who have persisted in building their artistic existence in commonality with their peers.

Leaders of Sertão Negro, the couple Dalton Paula and Ceiça Ferreira have generously shared part of their own home to host artists from different parts of the country, therefore facilitating movement of people, conversations, and debates around contemporary Black Art. By launching Sertão Negro, together they have created an artistic network that runs parallel to hegemony. With a space dedicated to the study of multiple art forms, it also involves knowledge of the environment, construction skills, education, and different artistic languages. Additional partnerships have been at the root of Sertão Negro since its conception, including its very construction: Eneida Sanches, one of the most acclaimed visual artists in Brazil, has been responsible for the architectural design.

More than a thousand miles away another artist has welcomed Afro Brazilian and people from the Black Diaspora into their atelier. Led by Rebeca Carapiá, the project Irê: arte, praia e pesquisa has hosted Brazilian artists such as George Teles, Iagor Peres, as well as the French transdisciplinary artist Soñxseed. Visiting artists have taken advantage of the large space at Irê to create, research, and foster cultural exchange. In an Instagram post, founder Carapiá has outlined her vision for the place: “It opens the paths to welcome, foster, and create spaces for presence, for practice and for cognitive liberation of people interested in collective action. Irê wishes to disseminate, multiply, and reflect on art through paving different centers of knowledge.” Project Afro shares the same view. Long live actions like this that embolden communication and communal gathering. May they yield fruit.

When observing the gestures and movement from some hegemonic institutions, we cannot help but notice the obsolescence in them, for they remain enclosed in conversations among themselves and between a handful of thinkers orbiting around them. The circuits for fruition and critical thinking of art have been outworn, as evinced by the projects mentioned in this article. One must establish new pathways for exchange and knowledge, particularly in the face of a scenario in which the cultural sector attempts to lift itself up from the ground after years of neglect and defunding. There must be a special emphasis on the independent projects trying to survive such catastrophic tides. Project Afro strives to create new ways of thinking and acting, and it is part of one of many actions currently in motion.

Instituto Ibirapitanga has supported the writing of this article.