Seeing Through Stone: Sonny Trujillo’s Voice from Within
Remy Francisco, October 25, 2024 At 63 years old, Sonny Trujillo stands upon a collapsed prison surveillance tower. He paces five steps...
Abdias Nascimento is one of the leading figures in the anti-racist and abolitionist struggle in contemporary Brazilian history. His contribution to the social and political sphere and the arts, theater, and human rights activism is invaluable. His life was marked by exile in the United States during the military dictatorship established in Brazil from the 1960s to the 1980s.
Due to political and racial persecution during the Getúlio Vargas dictatorship, he was imprisoned in 1937 in the Casa de Detenção de Sao Paulo (São Paulo House of Detention), known as Carandiru, one of the country’s most emblematic prisons. On this occasion, he wrote the manuscript Submundo (Underworld), which was published as a book in 2023. It is a historically significant document, as it depicts the punitive and racist mindset of the time, whose echoes are still felt today. The publication presents the author’s narrative, as well as the voices of his fellow inmates, and the creation of the Teatro do Sentenciado (Convicts’ Theater) – the precursor of the Teatro Experimental do Negro (Black Experimental Theater), a historic milestone in Brazilian theater.
For this webinar, two key figures in the anti-racist and abolitionist movement in Brazil who also contributed to this important work will participate: Dr. Elisa Larkin Nascimento, co-founder and director of Ipeafro, and Dr. Denise Carrascosa, a prominent anti-prison activist. Professor Gina Dent, co-director of the Visualizing Abolition program, will moderate the discussion.
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Abdias Nascimento é um dos principais expoentes da luta antirracista e abolicionista no Brasil. Sua contribuição para o campo social e político, bem como para as artes, dramaturgia e ativismo pelos direitos humanos, é inestimável. Sua trajetória foi marcada pelo exílio nos Estados Unidos durante a ditadura civil-militar no Brasil entre as décadas de 1960 e 1980.
Em decorrência de perseguição política e racial durante a ditadura de Getúlio Vargas, foi preso em 1937, na Casa de Detenção de São Paulo, conhecida como Carandiru, um dos presídios mais emblemáticos do país. Foi nesta ocasião que escreveu o manuscrito Submundo, publicado como livro em 2023. Trata-se de um documento histórico que retrata o pensamento punitivista e racista da época, ainda presente nos dias de hoje. A publicação apresenta a narrativa do autor, bem como as vozes de seus companheiros de cárcere, e a criação do Teatro do Sentenciado – precursor do Teatro Experimental do Negro, marco histórico da dramaturgia brasileira.
Para este webinar, contaremos com a participação de duas figuras fundamentais na luta antirracista e abolicionista no Brasil, que também contribuíram para esta importante obra: a Dra. Elisa Larkin Nascimento, cofundadora e diretora do Ipeafro, e a Dra. e Professora Denise Carrascosa, importante ativista antiprisional. A conversa será mediada pela professora e Dra. Gina Dent, codiretora do programa Visualizing Abolition.
Elisa Larkin Nascimento holds a Ph.D in psychology from the University of São Paulo, Brazil, and Master of Arts and Juris Doctor Degrees from the State University of New York, USA. Co-founder and director of the Afro-Brazilian Studies and Research Institute (IPEAFRO), she conceptualized and organized the Sankofa university outreach course, Sankofa Affirmative Education Forum, and Sankofa Educational Action Workshop (1984-2012). Curator of Abdias Nascimento | Black Art Museum exhibitions at major museums, she has written and edited books like The Sorcery of Color, the four-volume Sankofa collection, Adinkra: African Wisdom Symbols, and Abdias Nascimento, a Luta na Politica [the Political Struggle].
Denise Carrascosa is an anti-prison activist, lawyer, and associate professor of comparative literature at the Federal University of Bahia. She has been running the abolitionist project Corpos Indóceis (Indocile Bodies) and Mentes Livres (Free Minds) since 2010 at the Bahia State Women’s Penitentiary, where she coordinates sentence reprieve through artistic-literary creation workshops with women prisoners. She has created an editorial label for the publication of literature by women prisoners, the first title of which is Firminas em Fuga: poesia? On the subject of abolitionism, she wrote a doctoral thesis on literature and prison in post-Carandiru Brazil, defended in 2009 at UFBA and published in 2015 under the title Técnicas e Políticas de Si nas Margens (Techniques and Politics of the Self in the Margins) (Appris, 2015). Her most recent works are O pacto de bocapiu: a complicidade silenciosa do feminegricídio de estado nas prisões (Ed. Ogum’s, 2023) and Corpo de Vento: Exu da Teoria – travessias críticos-performativas pelas Artes Negras (EDUFBA, 2024).
This webinar is organized by João Simões and Claudio Bueno, as part of Explode! Platform’s site-specific installation’s Passagem (2024) featured in Seeing through Stone at the Institute of the Arts and Sciences.
Founded by Cláudio Bueno and João Simões in Brazil, Explode! Platform operates at the intersections of art, pedagogy, and social justice. Cláudio Bueno, from São Paulo, Brazil, is a professor in the Art Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. João Simões, from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is an artist, curator, researcher, and designer.
