Amazons
Joaquina de Angola
Memory of a liberation
Audiovisuals + Education
Free
An audiovisual installation by creator Aída Bueno Sarduy that recovers the story of Joaquina, a young woman enslaved on a plantation in Brazil, and her escape. A work about archived, forgotten, and silenced voices in the history of slavery and colonialism.
This audiovisual installation brings to life the act of "unarchiving" an event recorded in colonial history as an escape. A 15-year-old enslaved girl fled the plantation where she lived, and her owner, after an unsuccessful search, placed an ad in the newspaper offering a reward to whoever found her. The archive reveals nothing more about this incident: it merely collects it as a piece of data.
This piece challenges the oblivion, archiving, and silencing of this character. To unarchive, in this context, becomes an artistic and political act that brings Joaquina de Angola out of the shadows of the document, removing her gag and chains so that she can tell her own story. This act not only questions the record but also raises questions and delves into its details. It is an inquiry that brings Joaquina back to life and acknowledges her as a cimarrona, calling upon ancestral memory as well as imagination, intuition, and spirituality.
Since the beginning of colonization in Brazil, alliances and exchanges of extraordinary significance have taken place between Indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans, but these have also been silenced. The presence of entities known as caboclos (Indigenous spirits) in all Afro-Brazilian religions is perhaps the most consistent and profound evidence of this. Amazonian peoples, Indigenous peoples from across Brazil, and quilombola communities—formed by Afro-descendant peoples—have shared ancestral struggles for the defense of their territories and against colonization and exploitation. The installation speculates on these possible Afro-Indigenous alliances in Joaquina de Angola’s journey toward freedom.
Direction and Script - Aida Bueno Sarduy
Animation, Illustration, and Art Direction - Alexandra Calisto de Carvalho
Sound Design and Mixing - Sergio Borrás
Editing - Raúl Tamayo Estrada
Audio Recording (M'Banza Kongo / Angola) - Juliana Pedro
Research, Documentation, and Paleography - Benvinda Teixeira
Foley - Leyla de la Hoz / Zanca Estudio
Creative Production - Wendy Espinal / Ibirí Filmes
Production Assistant - Carolina Menéndez / Ibirí Filmes
Spatial design - Cristina Ortega
Curators: Aída Bueno Sarduy
This activity is part of Amazons
