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

Abstract

This essay analyzes the historical and aesthetic significance of the visual art project Assentamento(s) (2012-2013) by Rosana Paulino. Her work re- inscribes the black female body into the historical narrative of Brazil, complicating long-established notions of “Brazilianness”. By using art techniques and materials that combine lithography, digital printing, drawing, sewing, video, and sculpting, Paulino develops a multi-layered artistic assembly that she describes as a process of refazimento (“remaking”). Paulino pushes the boundaries of the historical archives, highlighting both the struggles and agency of black women within Brazilian society. I argue that, as a contemporary black woman visual artist, Paulino engages in a method of historical interpretation that Saidiya Hartman defines as “critical fabulation”. My study explores how Paulino’s refazimento represents a method of inquiry that confronts the legacies of Brazil’s racial democracy and its ideology of mestiçagem. Paulino’s visuality reclaims Afro-Brazilian ancestral memory and black female complex subjectivities.