Known for her research on social, ethnic and gender issues, ROSANA PAULINO (Brazil, 1967) main focus is black women’s position in Brazilian society and the various types of violence suffered by this population due to racism and the scars of slavery. A visual artist, researcher and educator, she has a PhD in visual arts from USP and a specialist degree in engraving from the London Print Studio. She was awarded Ford Foundation and Capes grants, and, in 2014, the Bellagio Center Residency Program of the Rockefeller Foundation in Bellagio, Italy. She held the individual exhibits Atlântico Vermelho [Red Atlantic], Galeria Superfície (2016), Mulheres Negras [Black Women] – Obscure beauté du Brésil, Espace Fort Grifoon, Besançon (2014), Tecido Social [Social Fabric], Galeria Virgílio (2010); and took part in the collective exhibitions South-South: Let Me Begin Again, Cape Town, South Africa (2017), La Corteza del Alma, Madrid (2016), and Territórios: Artistas Afrodescendentes no acervo da Pinacoteca [Territories: Afro-Descendant Artists in the Pinacoteca Collection], São Paulo (2015), among others.

In the videoinstallation DAS AVÓS (2019), the link between work and the condition of black women is crucial in Rosana Paulino’s production. Who might her ancestors be in a country marked by slavery? Looping projections show a young girl being exposed to images of black women from Brazil’s colonial period, in a caring relationship with the representatives of ancestry. Paulino aligns these characters with her own life story, reconstructing the lost ties through a symbolic retrieval of countless usurped memories.