The 6th C& print issue celebrating Afro-Brazilian perspectives and this year’s Bienal de São Paulo

Our latest C& print issue focusing on Afro-Brazilian perspectives as well as the 32nd Bienal de São Paulo, which is starting this week is a premiere: We are especially happy to be co-editing this edition with the amazing São Paulo-based editorial team of cultural magazine OMenelick 2° Ato.

Over two years ago, we published a conversation with Walter Mignolo on decoloniality. The interview became one of our most-read pieces and was the first time that we expanded our focus on topics concerning African perspectives in South America. Around the same time, we traveled to Brazil and started conversations which developed into close exchanges with creatives and collectives such as lanchonete.org based in São Paulo or OMenelick 2° Ato. What may have seemed obvious from the start, became even more clear to us in the process: the connection between Africa and South-America. The link the Black Atlantic creates between the experiences, problems, debates, and productivity of cultural producers from African perspectives is crucial to the issues and people C& wants to provide a platform for.

The reality for most Afro-Brazilian artists still is a state of invisibility within the Brazilian art scene and beyond. One example for this that remained with us was that of Rosana Paulino, who in 2010 was the first Afro-Brazilian artist to achieve a PhD in visual arts in Brazil. The first Black artist to receive a PhD in visual arts in the USA was Jeff Donaldson – in 1974.

Among the texts commissioned by our co-editors of OMenelick 2° Ato is an account of two members of Cia Os Crespos, a São Paulo based theater collective researching the emotional lives of Black transvestites, cross-dressers, drag queens, and transgender people. A beautiful essay by Allan da Rosa looks at new Afro-Brazilian literature. The grande dame of South African art, Helen Sibidi, is interviewed by 32nd Bienal de São Paulo co-curator Gabi Ngcobo and local cultural producers.

Read all interviews, features and essays from the 6th print issue on contemporaryand.com.