Olho por olho: o direito de olhar o bembé do mercado como gesto epistemológico de reversão da colonialidade visual no Brasil (2018-2022)

Abstract

Through this research, I assert the 'right to look', the freedom to gaze, and to make my community gazed by co-creating, from our own foundations, the visual dimension of our centennial celebration of the abolition of slavery - Bembé do Mercado. I also aim to build academic knowledge around this process. This is a claim for prerogatives denied to Black populations, who remain marginalized and excluded from the mechanisms of producing visual syntax, memories, and reality. To achieve this: (i) I reveal – an eye for an eye - the heterogeneity of the present, where the historical detention by whiteness of the means of producing reality through images has eroded insurmountable fissures; and (ii) I employ Andean methodology, ch’ixi, to recover pre-colonial Amerindian knowledge in an attempt, through gestures of 'epistemological reversal,' to confront the colonial legacy present in the visual semantic field. Accordingly, imbued with a defiant stance against the 'imperial shutter' (a consequence of prior image reproduction methods), I conduct exercises of gaze and empathy, immersing mbryself in the heart of my community, diving into our memories to yield a sea of images that serve as keys for analyzing it and as a repository for future investigations.