The Dutch occupation of Northeast Brazil in the seventeenth century is not widely known internationally. In Brazil, however, it is often romanticized as a period of progress and development, especially when contrasted with Portuguese colonization. Yet, like other colonial ventures, Dutch Brazil was ultimately a commercial enterprise driven by profit and sustained through exploitative and inhumane practices.

In Balbúrdia—a Portuguese word meaning noise, confusion, or mess—artist Patricia Werneck Ribas revisits this chapter of Brazilian history through collage. By deconstructing prints of well-known paintings by Albert Eckhout and Frans Post—artists sent to Brazil to document its landscape, flora, fauna, and people in service of the colonial project—and reassembling these fragments together with contemporary photographs of Brazil and pieces of painted paper, new hybrid images emerge. These compositions suggest creatures of Brazilian fauna and flora, challenging the colonial gaze and proposing alternative visual narratives.

The paintings of Eckhout and Post played a crucial role in legitimizing Johan Maurits’s authority as both a colonial and cultural leader. Their works contributed to early racial classification systems, embedding social hierarchies within European visual culture. In Brazil, reproductions of these images became some of the earliest visual representations of its people and environments, shaping national self-perception through the eyes of the colonizer.

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Para M (To M), 2023
Single channel, video, sound, 11:47 min.

Watch trailer: https://mediakunst.net/professional/#!/artwork/ma-1022470

A woman’s voice passionately addresses the enigmatic figure “M” in a narrative that initially portrays a positive shift as one colonial ruler replaces another. However, the story ultimately exposes the persistent and oppressive nature of the colonial enterprise within an enduring framework.

The initial “M” refers to Maurits in Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen, a seventeenth-century governor sent to Brazil as a representative of the Dutch West Indies Company. Despite the prevailing positive perception of this governmental change and idealized views of Maurits’s presence in Brazil, recent research uncovers the dark legacy of his dictatorship. The letter “M” emerges as a symbol branded on the skin of enslaved Africans under his possession.

Through a creative juxtaposition of images featuring women and reappropriated colonial arte-facts in and around Recife,Brazil —an outpost of Dutch occupation—the essay film intricately weaves a poetic letter. It seeks to discern the potential for the subaltern voice to articulate itself. The film powerfully underscores that, while the articulation of truth may demand time, its revelation remains an inevitable prospect.

Read article on Para M by curator and writer Ive Stevenheydens on Mediakunst.net:

This project was mas possible with the generous support of The Mondriaan Fonds, Amarte Fonds and CBK Zuidoost.

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The Possessed, 2022
Single-channel video, sound, 16:15min

Watch teaser: https://mediakunst.net/professional/#!/artwork/ma-1022040

In The Possessed, Patricia Werneck Ribas alludes to the resilience of the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomble in the face of colonial and modernist imposition. 

The artist juxtaposes fragments of influential texts from European thinkers over footage of practitioners of Candomble carrying out rituals on a deserted Brazilian beach. But they are not invoking demons that horror films and Christianity would have us believe. Candomble arose through a process of syncretism between traditional religions of West Africa, particularly that of the Yoruba, and the prevalent Roman Catholicism in Brazil when it was still a colony of Portugal. 

Brought to Brazil by the Portuguese during the sixteenth through to the nineteenth century, enslaved Africans were taken to plantations where few could speak the same language.  It was in the plantation owners’ own interest to discourage communication – all for the sake of avoiding rebellion. Despite this language barrier, they could still recognize common elements in each other’s belief systems. Thus they attempted to create a sense of community for themselves, separated from their families and displaced unwillingly from one continent to another.

Although Candomblé has always been marginalized by the Roman Catholic church, it has grown in popularity and remains a site of resistance against white Christian European domination.

Read article on The Possessed by curator and writer Ive Stevenheydens on Mediakunst.net

This project was made possible with the generous support of the Mondriaan Fund.

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