Contribution short abstract:

This work explores the poetics of water in the works of Deisiane Barbosa in connection to the artist's larger project to conceive ways of re-signifying landscapes and histories, and expanding places of memory, beyond hegemonic concepts of archive.

Contribution long abstract:

Deisiane Barbosa is a Brazilian poet, performer, book editor and researcher from Recôncavo da Bahia, who has been experimenting with literary creation processes, in conversation with performance, video art and artist’s books, crossed with women’s memories and narratives. This work engages with two of Barbosa’s artworks. “Crônicas a Luanda” [Chronicles to Luanda] (2020) is a poetic account of the writer´s crossing from Recôncavo da Bahia to Luanda, and her experience, as a woman of African descent, of “returning” to Africa. “O Sonho Puído” [A Threadbare Dream] (2019) is a video-poem-performance set against the backdrop of the waters of the Paraguaçu River in São Félix and the sea waters of Itapuã beach in the city of Salvador, as well as the crossing of these waters. Both artworks give prominence to trans/oceanic experiences and refer to some recurring issues raised throughout Barbosa’s artistic project, such as the experience of producing narratives extended to cities and involving other women-bodies, as well as the role of the body as archive, capable of forging counter-hegemonic forms of writing and inscribing memory. In foregrounding images and metaphors of water and crossings, “Crônicas a Luanda” and “O Sonho Puído” trace a poetics of water, centered upon fluidity, inventiveness, provisionality and relationality, but committed to situated engagements with places and spaces. This work aims at building a relation between these two artworks by approaching them as archives of Brazilian slave trade memories, which provide us with alternative epistemic models and a grammar for re-crossing the Black Atlantic.