Healing expressions in visual poetics: creation and curatorship in contamporary Africa

• Grant number: 23/07150-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: June 01, 2023
• End date: December 31, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Interdisciplinary Subjects
• Principal Investigator: Denise Dias Barros
• Grantee: Flávio da Silva Nogueira
• Host Institution: Escola de Artes, Ciências e Humanidades (EACH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 22/05923-9 - From the heart of wars to the poetics of plasticity: creation and engagement in artistic thinking in African contexts from the 1980s till nowadays, AP.TEM

Abstract

This research turns to the analysis and understanding of notions of "healing" in visual poetics: contemporary African creations and curations. Thus, the proposal looks at the conceptual aspects and attributes of healing existing in contemporary African artistic production. The emblematic scenario for the present reflection was a mapping that counted on complementary and summatory paths, carried out by approximation both from expographic situations and by artists and their creations. In this way, the study focuses on getting to know initiatives created in recent years, seeking to analyze how the theme of "healing" is present in African arts, considering material aspects, expressive forms, and reflexive dimensions. To do so, it is necessary to understand the elements related to the artistic process, correlating and reflecting on the perspectives of the social, cultural, political, and philosophical layers, as well as analyzing the materials used for this construction, indicating the concepts loaded for its understanding. For the development of the study, we will resort to a bibliographical review based on articles by African philosophers and curators, such as Achille Mbembe, Okwui Enwezor, and Chika Okeke-Agulu, among other thinkers who deal with contemporaneity on the continent. In addition, the contributions of the psychiatrist Frantz Fanon will be considered, as well as interviews with African artists and curators.