Rechercher

Pairing Dominican-born artist Firelei Báez with Kenyan-born artist Wangechi Mutu, this article meditates on relational black and brown aesthetic strategies by reading femme gestures performatively across individual works, as well as the exhibition spaces within which the artists draft practices of informed and resistant engagement. Working with both theories of brownness that emerge from Latinx studies as well as scholarship of the black radical tradition, the author follows a sense of shared aesthetic gestures in Báez and Mutu’s work toward an indictment of pervasive Global North racial epistemologies. Focusing on the performative gesture as the basis for relation, this article ultimately hones in on the chimeric figures—amalgamations of flora and fauna—that both artists deploy, arguing that these present a model for imagining an otherwise arrangement of the social.R Poniendo en diálogo a Firelei Báez, una artista nacida en República Dominicana, con Wangechi Mutu, que nació en Kenia, este artículo invita a una meditación sobre las estrategias estéticas relacionales negras y morenas mediante una lectura en clave performativa de gestos femeninos en obras individuales y en aquellos espacios de exposición en que las artistas elaboran prácticas de participación política informada y de resistencia. Trabajando tanto con las teorías de lo moreno (brownness) que emergen de los estudios Latinx como con el trabajo académico de la tradición radical negra, la autora rastrea gestos estéticos presentes tanto en el trabajo de Báez como en el de Mutu para denunciar las omnipresentes epistemologías raciales del norte global. Centrándose en el gesto performativo como la base de la relación, este artículo se enfoca en última instancia en las figuras quiméricas – amalgamaciones de flora y fauna – que ambas artistas despliegan en su trabajo para sostener que estas presentan un modelo para imaginar otra manera de organizar lo social.

According to the 2000 census, Latinos/as have become the largest ethnic minority group in the United States. Images of Latinos and Latinas in mainstream news and in popular culture suggest a Latin Explosion at center stage, yet the topic of queer identity in relation to Latino/a America remains under examined. Juana María Rodríguez attempts to rectify this dearth of scholarship in Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces, by documenting the ways in which identities are transformed by encounters with language, the law, culture, and public policy. She identifies three key areas as the project’s case studies: activism, primarily HIV prevention; immigration law; and cyberspace. In each, Rodríguez theorizes the ways queer Latino/a identities are enabled or constrained, melding several theoretical and methodological approaches to argue that these sites are complex and dynamic social fields. As she moves the reader from one disciplinary location to the other, Rodríguez reveals the seams of her own academic engagement with queer latinidad. This deftly crafted work represents a dynamic and innovative approach to the study of identity formation and representation, making a vital contribution to a new reformulation of gender and sexuality studies.

"Sexual Futures, Queer Gestures and Other Latina Longings proposes a theory of sexual politics that works in the interstices between radical queer desires and the urgency of transforming public policy, between utopian longings and everyday failures. Considering the ways in which bodily movement is assigned cultural meaning, Juana Maria Rodriguez takes the stereotypes of the hyperbolically gestural queer Latina femme body as a starting point from which to discuss how gestures and forms of embodiment inform sexual pleasures and practices in the social realm. Centered on the sexuality of racialized queer female subjects, the book's varied archive--which includes burlesque border crossings, daddy play, pornography, sodomy laws, and sovereignty claims--seeks to bring to the fore alternative sexual practices and machinations that exist outside the sightlines of mainstream cosmopolitan gay male culture. Situating articulations of sexual subjectivity between the interpretive poles of law and performance, Rodriguez argues that forms of agency continually mediate among these various structures of legibility--the rigid confines of the law and the imaginative possibilities of the performative. She reads the strategies of Puerto Rican activists working toward self-determination alongside sexual performances on stage, in commercial pornography, in multi-media installations, on the dance floor, and in the bedroom. Rodriguez examines not only how projections of racialized sex erupt onto various discursive mediums but also how the confluence of racial and gendered anxieties seeps into the gestures and utterances of sexual acts, kinship structures, and activist practices. Ultimately, Sexual Futures, Queer Gestures, and Other Latina Longings reveals--in lyrical style and explicit detail--how sex has been deployed in contemporary queer communities in order to radically reconceptualize sexual politics"--

In the 1960s, topless entertainment became legal in San Francisco, although cross-dressing continued to be criminalized. This article documents queer Latina/x visual and performance cultures of San Francisco’s strip club industry during this critical moment. It employs visual and performance analyses that draw from ethnographic interviews and archival research about three Latinas who performed as exotic dancers during this period, two of whom were out transsexuals: Roxanne Lorraine Alegria, Vicki Starr, and Lola Raquel. Engaging Marcia Ochoa’s notion of “spectacular femininities” and Juana María Rodríguez’s theory of “queer gesture,” the article maps out a queer Latina/x herstoriography about the early days of topless entertainment in San Francisco. It demonstrates how the transgressive practices of these Latina performers enrich genealogies of queer and Latina/x performance and visual cultures since the 1960s. It thus contributes to the expansion and intersection of the fields of performance studies, Latina/x studies, and feminist, gender, and sexuality studies. These fields and their intertwinings offer critical tools to resist the sexism, homophobia, racism, transphobia, and whorephobia that pervade every level of society, as well as the cultural amnesia to which San Francisco has been increasingly prone due to its incessant gentrification and growing technocracy since the early 2010s.RESUMEN Este artículo documenta las culturas visuales y de performance latinas/x queer de los clubes de striptease de San Francisco durante un momento crítico en la historia de la ciudad. En la década de 1960, los shows en topless se legalizaron en San Francisco, aunque el travestismo se continuó criminalizando. Otálvaro-Hormillosa emplea análisis visuales y de performance que se basan en entrevistas etnográficas e investigación de archivo sobre tres latinas que actuaron como bailarinas exóticas durante este período, dos de las cuales reconocían públicamente que eran transexuales: Roxanne Lorraine Alegria, Vicki Starr y Lola Raquel. En diálogo con la noción de “feminidades espectaculares” de Marcia Ochoa y la teoría de “gestos queer” de Juana María Rodríguez, Otálvaro-Hormillosa describe una historiografía latina/x queer propiamente femenina sobre los primeros días del entretenimiento en topless en San Francisco. El artículo demuestra cómo las prácticas transgresoras de estas intérpretes latinas enriquecen las genealogías de las culturas visuales y de performance queer y latinas/x desde los años sesenta. Al hacerlo, contribuye a la expansión e intersección de los campos de los estudios de performance, estudios latinas/x, y estudios feministas, de género y de sexualidad. Estos campos y sus entrecruzamientos pueden ofrecer herramientas críticas para resistir el sexismo, la homofobia, el racismo, la transfobia y la putafobia que permea todos los niveles de la sociedad, así como la amnesia cultural a la que San Francisco ha sido cada vez más propenso debido a su incesante gentrificación y creciente tecnocracia desde principios de los años 2010.RESUMO Este artigo documenta a cultura visual e de performance na indústria de clubes de strip-tease de São Francisco, durante um momento crítico da história da cidade. Nos anos 60, o entretenimento topless se tornou legal em São Francisco, embora a prática do cross-dressing continuasse criminalizada. Otálvaro-Hormillosa emprega análise visual e de performance baseadas em entrevistas etnográficas e pesquisas de arquivos sobre três latinas que se apresentaram como dançarinas exóticas durante esse período, duas das quais eram transexuais: Roxanne Lorraine Alegria, Vicki Starr e Lola Raquel. Engajando a noção de “feminilidades espetaculares” de Marcia Ochoa e a teoria do “gesto queer” de Juana María Rodríguez, Otálvaro-Hormillosa mapeia uma herstoriografia queer latina/x sobre os sobre os primórdios do entretenimento topless em São Francisco. O artigo demonstra como as práticas transgressivas dessas artistas latinas enriquecem as genealogias das culturas visual e de performance queer e latina/x desde os anos 1960. Deste modo, contribui para a expansão e intersecção dos campos de estudos da performance, estudos latinos e estudos feministas, de gênero e sexualidade. Esses campos e seus entrelaçamentos podem oferecer ferramentas críticas para resistir ao sexismo, homofobia, racismo, transfobia e putafobia que permeiam todos os níveis da sociedade, bem como a amnésia cultural para a qual San Francisco tem sido cada vez mais propensa devido à sua gentrificação incessante e crescente tecnocracia desde o início dos anos 2010.

Written by one of the foremost scholars of African art and featuring more than 125 color images, Postcolonial Modernism chronicles the emergence of artistic modernism in Nigeria in the heady years surrounding political independence in 1960.

This dissertation centers on the relationship between art and politics in postwar Central America as materialized in the specific issues of racial and gendered violence that derive from the region's geopolitical location and history. It argues that the decade of the 1990s marks a moment of change in the region's cultural infrastructure, both institutionally and conceptually, in which artists seek a new visual language of experimental art practices to articulate and conceptualize a critical understanding of place, experience and knowledge. It posits that visual and conceptual manifestations of violence in Central American performance, conceptual art and installation extend beyond a critique of the state, and beyond the scope of political parties in perpetuating violent circumstances in these countries. It argues that instead artists use experimental practices in art to locate manifestations of racial violence in an historical system of domination and as a legacy of colonialism still witnessed, lived, and learned by multiple subjectivities in the region. In this postwar period artists move beyond the cold-war rhetoric of the previous decades and instead root the current social and political injustices in what Aníbal Quijano calls the `coloniality of power.' Through an engagement of decolonial methodologies, this dissertation challenges the label "political art" in Central America and offers what I call "visual disobedience" as a response to the coloniality of seeing. I posit that visual colonization is yet another aspect of the coloniality of power and indispensable to projects of decolonization. It offers an analysis of various works to show how visual disobedience responds specifically to racial and gender violence and the equally violent colonization of visuality in Mesoamerica. Such geopolitical critiques through art unmask themes specific to life and identity in contemporary Central America, from indigenous genocide, femicide, transnational gangs, to mass imprisonments and a new wave of social cleansing. I propose that Central American artists--beyond an anti-colonial stance--are engaging in visual disobedience so as to construct decolonial epistemologies in art, through art, and as art as decolonial gestures for healing.

The development of Global Renaissance art history has had an undeniable impact on the field of colonial Latin American art. Some of the earliest manifestations of this disciplinary partnership can be found in exhibitions, monographs, articles, and edited volumes produced around the quincentennial of Christopher Columbus’s 1492 voyage. Exhibitions such as Circa 1492 at the National Gallery and a wave of scholarly publications addressed the cataclysmic impact of the European invasion and subsequent colonization of the Americas at an epistemological, linguistic, political, biological, and aesthetic level. The year 1992 precipitated an outpouring of critical reflection on the history of colonialism in the Western hemisphere and its enduring legacies both within Latin America and its diasporic communities.

In this paper I offer a brief overview of the academic debates about post-colonial theories and the concept of coloniality, seeking to map out their Latin American translations, especially from the perspective of feminist theories in relation to the coloniality of gender. By emphasizing an intersectional approach to understand the gendered character of coloniality, decolonial feminists are seeking innovative ways of articulating new epistemologies or “saberes propios”. However, in these debates little attention has been given to the issue of the travels and translations of decolonial feminisms in Latin America. In focusing on the vexed issue of translation, I want to explore some of the challenges Latin American decolonial feminists are facing today.

This essay aims to trace an overview of the decolonial aesthetics through the analysis of artistic expressions that occurred in Latin American territory. This analysis will allow us to enhance the cultural and artistic practices within its plurality and the typical spatial archetypes within its temporal resignification. The necessity of creation and the search for new epistemological fields translate the historical movements of the Latin-American cultural mouvance and the juxtaposition of temporalities, practices and the confluence of knowledge. We can find a stage of resistance and socio-historical borders subverted, mainly in the context of artistic and cultural manifestations and its capacity of invention and relativization. This essay aims to bring a reflection on the construction of cultural spaces and the dismantling of a single hegemonic perspective to define the artistic practices. The analysis and the epistemological questioning of the Latin-American trans-historical movement delineates an overview of the history of artistic productions that came out of practices and every-day life inventions and the elaboration of temporary spaces of claim and contestation through exhibitions, performances, festivals, and so forth. The idea of subverting a geopolitical imaginary and a cartography of the world (even if initially in local dynamics) consists of a central focus of this work.

There was no meaningful attempt to counter the black aesthetic with conceptual criteria for creating and evaluating art which would simultaneously acknowledge its ideological content even as it allowed for expansive notions of artistic freedom. To re-open the creative space that much of the black aesthetic movement closed down, it seems vital for those involved in contemporary black arts to engage in a revitalized discussion of aesthetics. In part, a radical aesthetic acknowledges that the people are constantly changing positions, locations, that their needs and concerns vary, that these diverse directions must correspond with shifts in critical thinking. Innovative African-American artists have rarely documented their process, their critical thinking on the subject of aesthetics. Certainly many of the revolutionary, visionary critical perspectives on music that were inherent to John Coltrane’s oppositional aesthetics and his cultural production will never be shared because they were not fully documented.

Searching the critical work of post-colonial critics, the author found much writing that bespeaks the continued fascination with the way white minds, particularly the colonial imperialist traveler, perceive blackness, and very little expressed interest in representations of whiteness in the black imagination. Some white people may even imagine there is no representation of whiteness in the black imagination, especially one that is based on concrete observation or mythic conjecture. Stereotypes black folks maintain about white folks are not the only representations of whiteness in the black imagination. Yet it is this representation of whiteness in the black imagination, first learned in the narrow confines of poor black rural community, that is sustained by the author travels to many different locations. Theorizing diverse journeying is crucial to the people understanding of any politics of location.

Discursos sobre “raza” y nación en Colombia, 1880-1930 constituye un aporte a la investigación sobre la formación de la nación en Colombia durante los siglos xix al xx. El libro es producto de la investigación de tesis de maestría del autor y se centra en mostrar cómo las elites del país concibieron y, en específico, aplicaron con la legislación y otros recursos políticos y culturales, formas de poder y hegemonía mediante las cuales establecieron su dominio a partir del control social, la higienización -“depuración racial o blanqueamiento de la raza”- y el señalamiento a los grupos que resistieron esas formas arbitrarias de poder desde arriba. La estructura del libro está dividida en una introducción, cuatro capítulos, las conclusiones, la bibliografía y una corta semblanza del autor. El primer capítulo es un análisis metodológico de la “alteridad”, a partir de la perspectiva poscolonial y decolonial; siguiendo a autores de renombre en ese campo, trata de demostrar – lamentablemente de modo uniforme– el carácter cruel y violento del proceso de europeización y de sus valores “irracionales” más recurrentes. Los capítulos del dos al cinco se dedican a sustentar la postura metodológica con un material de fuentes y de análisis sobre el racismo colombiano en los siglos xix y xx.

En medio del proceso de construcción de la República, durante el siglo xix, en Venezuela los sectores no blancos de la sociedad intentaron legitimarse a través de la fotografía en las carte-de-visite, con el objetivo de ratificar su posición en esta sociedad ‘café con leche’. El uso de esta tecnología, así como la aparición y aceptación de manuales de urbanidad, fueron parte de un proceso en el que estos sectores intentaron ‘modernizarse’, reflejando las tensiones sociales asociadas, por ejemplo, a la dicotomía campo-ciudad o a la necesidad de ‘blanquearse’ ante los ojos de los coterráneos. El objetivo de este trabajo, es estudiar la manera en que el retrato fotográfico y el manual de urbanidad actúan en una sociedad cuyas diferencias y distancias sociales y económicas han sufrido un gran trastorno luego del proceso independentista. During the process of the construction of the Republic, in the 19th Century, non-white sectors of Venezuelan society attempted to legitimise themselves through photographs in their cart-de-visite, with the object of ratifying their position in this ‘coffee and milk’ society. The use of such technology, as well as the introduction and acceptance of urbanity handbooks, were part of a process in which these sectors tried to ‘modernise’, reflecting related social tensions, for example, the urban-rural dichotomy or the need for ‘whitening’ themselves in the eyes of their fellow citizens. The purpose of this paper is to study the way in which photographic portraits and urbanity handbooks act in a society in which social and economic differences and distances have undergone a great upheaval since the independence process.

La perspectiva de género en el arte del Caribe colombiano se puede contextualizar con el movimiento feminista planetario. La comparación se establece en las creaciones de mujeres artistas de esta región, ya que subvierten, manifiestan y revelan con denotada libertad expresiva, no solamente sus inquietudes intimistas, sino toda una serie de cuestionamientos a las condiciones que culturalmente se le han impuesto a la mujer en el Caribe. Son dos generaciones diferentes; las primeras, analizadas en esta entrega, pueden ser catalogadas como pioneras de la perspectiva de género en el arte colombiano. Las segundas, consolidan problemáticas en apuestas individuales, de manera diaspórica y cada vez más comprometidas con el movimiento social de mujeres. En ambos casos lo hacen a través de las artes visuales, audiovisuales, performáticas e híbridas. Estamos ante artistas vanguardistas, de las artes visuales y performáticas en el Caribe colombiano; preferimos llamarlas, en ambos casos, visionarias. Gender perspective in the Colombian Caribbean art can be contextualized within the worldwide feminist movement. The comparison is established in the artwork of female artists from this region, as they subvert, demonstrate, and reveal with poignant expressive freedom, not only their intimate concerns, but a whole series of questions to the conditions that have been culturally imposed on women in the Caribbean. They come from two different generations. The first generation, analyzed in this installment, can be defined as the pioneers of gender perspective in Colombian art. The second generation consolidates issues through individual pledges in a diasporic way and increasingly committed to the social women’s movement. Both generations do this through performative, hybrid, visual and audiovisual art. These are avant-garde artists of the visual and performative art in the Colombian Caribbean. We prefer to call them, in both cases, visionaries.

Este trabajo se propone comprender la incidencia de las relaciones de poder que ciertas representaciones temporales acerca de grupos indígenas pueden ejercer en nuestra comprensión pasada y actual. Diversas imágenes reprodujeron ideas de indígenas que, aunque estuvieran vivos, mostraban una cultura asimilada a un pasado de amplias dimensiones. Por lo tanto, para comprender el proceso de invisibilización de la diversidad indígena en la cultura nacional, es relevante considerar los mecanismos de montaje discursivo —visuales y textuales—, vinculados con las nociones temporales de indios viviendo en un supuesto tiempo remoto. Atendiendo a ello, se analizan los procesos de montaje, desde la producción de las fotografías hasta la edición y presentación de imágenes, tanto en la prensa como en postales, publicaciones científicas y de divulgación, para ver cómo a veces pequeños cambios de encuadre, contraste, retoque o selección pueden incidir en la construcción de diversas historias, en la comprensión y en los sentidos construidos y en pugna.

Este artículo discute el concepto de tiempo en la historia-disciplina como una noción política. A partir del análisis de las relaciones entre historia, nación y temporalidad, el autor intenta desentrañar por qué existe una distribución jerárquica de sujetos de la historia y sujetos de la cultura. Estudiando casos concretos de Sudáfrica y Argentina, intenta ver de qué manera esa distribución (incluso resignificada en la “nación multicultural”) impide ver ciertas continuidades en la reproducción de las asimetrías. El trabajo culmina analizando una noción poscolonial de historia como pérdida, como un regimen híbrido de historicidad. This article discusses the concept of time in History (the discipline) as a political notion. Starting with and analysis of the connivences between history, nation and temporality, the author tries to unravel why it operates a hierarchical distribution of “subjets of history” and “subjects of culture”. Dealing with specific cases of South Africa and Argentina, he tries to see how this distribution (even resignified in the “multicultural nation”) prevents to realize certain continuities in the reproduction of asymmetries. This piece of work ends analyzing a postcolonial notion of history as loss, meaning a hybrid regime of historicity.

El siguiente artículo es una respuesta a la exposición de arte indígena contemporáneo Gran Chaco Gualamba. Arte, Cosmovisión, Soberanía (Chaco, Argentina; Julio de 2013). Sin desviarse de los propios objetivos de la muestra, problematiza la práctica curatorial como una forma de ver y mostrar a la producción artística de las poblaciones originarias como artefactos significantes íntimamente enlazados con sus formas de vida comunitaria -y no meramente obras de arte autónomas y asépticas de toda función social-. Contrastando las definiciones del equipo de curadoras, el corpus de obras expuestas y el discurso de pobladores originarios, se muestra que este intento por recuperar el nexo orgánico entre arte, cosmovisiones y vida en comunidad resulta trunco, dado que los propios pobladores originarios consideran esta vinculación como una circunstancia históricamente pretérita, previa a los procesos de colonización. Recuperando las luchas presentes de las comunidades, que a falta de ese pasado armonioso plantean su identidad como resistencia necesaria para un futuro distinto – mejor-. This work is a response to a contemporary indigenous art exhibition titled «Gran Chaco Gualamba - Arte, Cosmovisión, Soberanía» (Chaco, Argentina; July 2013). Consistent with the purposes of this exhibition, the article problematizes curatorial practice as a way to present the artistic production of the indigenous populations as significant artifacts intimately involved in the daily community life, and not merely as autonomous artistic objects with no social function. By contrasting the definitions provided by the curatorial team,the corpus of artworks exhibited and the native peoples’ speech, the article shows how the exhibit fails to recover the link between art, cosmovisions and community life because the native populations themselves consider these three spheres as an outdated historical circumstance, previous to the colonization processes. Finally, the current struggles of the communities are mapped which, in the absence of that harmonious past, pose their identity as a necessary resistance for a better future.

Este trabajo presenta los resultados de la investigación Imágenes de lo extraordinario: monstruos americanos del siglo XVI, proceso de creación artística desarrollado por los estudiantes del Semillero de Investigación en Artes Visuales (SINAV) del programa de Artes Visuales de la Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia (UNAD) entre 2018 y 2019. Para analizar de manera crítica e histórica la construcción de identidades sobre lo latinoamericano, se tomó como marco de análisis la representación de lo monstruoso en los relatos y las imágenes construidas por los cronistas de Indias en el siglo XVI, los cuales marcaron procesos de marginalización cultural, construcción de subjetividades y dinámicas de poder, y presentaron al habitante americano como una otredad que estaba fuera de los límites de la cultura dominante occidental. Se presentan los postulados teóricos sobre lo monstruoso como marco para el análisis histórico y la creación de obra, con una metodología de trabajo colaborativo y en gran parte virtual. Posteriormente, se exponen algunos resultados de la investigación histórica que dan paso a detallar el proceso de creación de obra que culminó con la exposición de la instalación audiovisual Imágenes de lo extraordinario, así como con una amplia serie de ilustraciones contemporáneas sobre lo monstruoso y un producto digital en formato página web donde se presenta una cartografía de lo monstruoso en América Latina y se recogen las memorias de todo el proyecto. This work presents the results of the research Images of the Extraordinary: American Monsters of the 16th Century, artistic creation process developed by the students of the Research Seedbed in Visual Arts (SINAV, for its initials in Spanish) of the Visual Arts program of Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia (UNAD) between 2018 and 2019. With the objective of analyzing, in a critical and historical way, the construction of identities on Latin American matters, the representation of the monstrous in the stories and images constructed by the chroniclers of the Indies in the 16th century was used as a framework of analysis. These chroniclers marked processes of cultural marginalization, construction of subjectivities and power dynamics, and presented the American inhabitant as an otherness that was outside the limits of the dominant Western culture. The theoretical postulates about the monstrous are presented as a framework for historical analysis and the creation of works, with a collaborative and largely virtual working methodology. Some results of the historical research are then presented, which gives way to detailing the process of creating work that culminated in the exhibition of the audiovisual installation Images of the Extraordinary, as well as a wide range of contemporary illustrations on the monstrous and a digital product in web page format where a cartography of the monstrous in Latin America is presented and the memories of the whole project are collected.

La memoria hace referencia a un conjunto de funciones psíquicas que permiten la actualización de imágenes de hechos pasados o que se representan como pasados. A diferencia de los estudios históricos, los de la memoria resaltan las subjetividades, amplían la discusión más allá del recuerdo y el olvido, y desplazan el debate hacia quien tiene el derecho a narrar su historia y aquellos que en ella se encuentran. Las inquietudes en torno a la memoria y sus lugares también se hacen visibles en el inquieto horizonte artístico, en el que pasados recientes y distantes se articulan en registros sobre diversas formas de traumas. Este artículo propone una reflexión sobre las relaciones entre arte y memoria a partir de la producción de dos artistas brasileñas contemporáneas: Rosana Paulino (São Paulo, 1968) y Aline Motta (Niterói, 1974). El análisis de esa producción se fundamenta en la interdisciplinaridad de los estudios de la memoria y destaca cómo la creación artística ofrece una posibilidad de resignificación individual y colectiva. Asimismo, conceptúa memorias americoafricanas como aquellas que emergen no solo en la memoria individual de las artistas presentadas en este artículo, sino también en la de muchas otras mujeres que se identifican con Americoáfrica como un sistema etnogeográfico de referencia. Son memorias americoafricanas porque se han gestado en la resistencia y creatividad contra la opresión, la humillación y la deshumanización, y que se insurgen contra la historia única proponiendo una revisión de la historiografía del país y del arte producido a partir de esos lugares. Memory refers to a set of psychic functions that allow the updating of images of past events or events that are represented as past. Unlike historical studies, memory studies highlight subjectivities, expand the discussion beyond memory and oblivion, and shift the debate towards who has the right to narrate their history and those who are in it. The concerns about memory and its places also become visible in the restless artistic horizon, in which recent and distant pasts are articulated in registers about various forms of trauma. This paper proposes a reflection on the relationship between art and memory based on the production of two contemporary Brazilian artists: Rosana Paulino (São Paulo, 1968) and Aline Motta (Niterói, 1974). The analysis of this production is based on the interdisciplinary nature of memory studies and highlights how artistic creation offers a possibility of individual and collective resignification. Likewise, it conceptualizes African-American memories as those that emerge not only in the individual memory of the artists presented in this article, but also in that of many other women who identify with Africa-America, as a reference ethnogeographic system. They are African-American memories because they have been born in resistance and creativity against oppression, humiliation and dehumanization, and because they insurrect against the unique history, proposing a review of the historiography of the country and the art produced out of those places.