trabalho (work), 2017
objects that portray the naturalization of slavery in Brazil (calendars, t-shirts, postcards, money bills, garbage basket, sculpture, porcelain, tapestries and jigsaw); laser engraving of the list of professions with the highest incidence of black people in Brazil; statements that report structural racism in Brazil
250 x 500 x 35 cm
photo Filipe Berndt

The link between the naturalizing survival of the images of slavery and the maintenance of the racist culture are fundamental elements for the construction of "Work". Here, reproductions of images of people working in a situation of enslavement carried out by artists such as Jean-Baptiste Debret found in everyday objects (t-shirts, postcards, money bills, porcelain, tapestries, etc.) are contrasted with excerpts of cases of structural racism in Brazil. These testimonials report how black people are mistaken with employees in the places they frequent (shops, supermarkets, restaurants, etc.). Purchased in shops, flea markets, antique fairs and auction houses, the objects were chosen, as it was intended to show how the naturalization of the image (no longer as a historical document but as an object of common use) of black men and women working in situations of enslavement, result, up to the present time, in racism, segregation and exclusion of certain types of bodies.