Colours and Values
by Stephanie Ribeiro & Túlio Custódio
Tipos [Types] takes a new look at the work of the German-Brazilian photographer Alberto Henschel (1827-1882), known for his photographs of the landscapes of Rio de Janeiro and the daily lives of the Brazilian Royal family in the Second Empire. His title of Royal Photographer gave him exclusive access to photograph Dom Pedro II and his family. However, his major contribution to the history of photography is the photographs he took of 19th century Brazilians from all levels of society: standard carte-de-visite portraits of the nobility, rich merchants, the middle classes, and also of black slaves and freedmen from before the Lei Áurea [the Golden Law - which abolished slavery in 1888].
Fernando Banzi's works redefine the records of these people of African descent that date from the 1860s, and which were taken in the cities of Recife and Salvador. They return to the past and, using similar pigments to Alberto Henschel’s portraits, he gives these individuals their right to an identity. He does this by using a digital image manipulating photo-paint technique that enables numerous narrative possibilities, and invites spectators to imagine their stories, taking us away from our comfort zone of a resolutely condensed narrative about black people. Even when enslaved they were not equals; they did not share the same backgrounds; nor did they react in the same way to oppression, and this is just as true today as it will always be. The selection of images in this exhibition shows black Africans in the colonial period with very different characteristics.
Where do we come from? Who are we? Where do our features come from? Why do this kind of hair, these features and colours, even though they are different, label us as NEGRO? By giving new colours to Alberto Henschel's portraits, Banzi puts the tinted spectacles of imagination over our eyes, forcing us to reflect on these figures not only as victims of the colonial structure, but as INDIVIDUAL victims of the colonial structure. His work shows an attention to those who, despite their different origins, features, colours, hair, were all defined within a single category: SLAVES. Just as those who defined blackness based their understanding that we were the other of the other, the enslaved also had their dehumanisation asserted from the understanding that they were not normal. The act of renaming, redefining, and recolouring sounds simple, but it is about becoming human.
For black people, becoming the subject is also part of the process of shedding light on the diversity of their own identities. In times when debate on race is becoming more common, discussion of colonialism, racial identity, black features and cultural appropriation is also gaining prominence as these issues permeate the field of subjectivity. A kind of racist subjectivity that in Brazil that was denied to those who were treated as types of things, and not as types of people. The continued influence of racism in our history - the history of the creation and invention of Brazil, has given a negative and pejorative association to people of certain colours. Black people were "lost" in a range of negative senses: wayward people, unwanted people, outcasts, non-humans, things. The colour black, the colour that gives away people’s African origin, their enslaved past, is the colour that represents negativity.
A new generation is giving a new meaning to this and transforming it into positivity by standing up proudly for their braids and colourful printed clothes, saying they are not ugly, they are not contemptible, and demonstrating their empowerment and freedom. What is symbolic is that this also comes across through the number of new colours, both in the sense of engaging with other struggles such as women’s rights and lgbtq+, as well as in recognising the colours that make up the aesthetics of our own bodies. For many, these current photos and records are mere expressions of ego; however, for those who still live and experience a society that relegates black people to a single type of being that shares the same characteristics they disrupt the narrative. Fernando Banzi uses these current influences to recolour this past present, intersecting narratives and giving us, the new “woke” generation, an opportunity to build bridges and set down roots using the identity that was taken from us.
The exhibition Tipos presents new colours that we can use to expand the way we see black people and the way we see humans who were historically and structurally victims of unprecedented violence. Banzi creates new colours for the photos, helping us to imagine other values, moving away from the impoverished, pejorative and racist Brazilian imagery of slaves. These are humans. People. Real people. Different kinds of people. Tipos shines new light on this still recent past of Brazil. It pluralises our existence and is a sound starting point for anyone who finds themselves unable to clearly reconstruct their origin. Now, more than ever, is the time to add new colours to our palette of symbols, new forms of seeing our image of humanity, as subjects.
Tipos serves as a link in a vacuum to give new value to those who have always been defined by the colour of their skins.
Stephanie Ribeiro, black feminist, architect and urban planner, writer.
Túlio Custódio, sociologist and curator of knowledge at the Inesplorato.
The journalist and photography post-graduate Fernando Banzi lives and works in São Paulo. A member of the Goma Workshop Collaborative Platform, he teaches photography at the college Senac São Miguel Paulista in São Paulo.
He was selected for the MIS São Paulo Programa Nova Fotografia 2018 [New Photography Programme] for his project Tipos [Types], and in the same year was also selected for the Festival PHotoEspaña in Madrid, the Festival Internacional da Imagem Valongo in Santos/SP [the Valongo International Image Festival], and the Solar Foto Festival in Fortaleza, Ceara. He was also invited by Festival Zum 2019, the Instituto Moreira Salles’ ZUM magazine to present his book Tipos, which had been acquired by the library.
He has self-published three books of photography: Hecho en Mexico, Taciturnidade, and Omipipa. At the end of 2019, his book Tipos [Types] was published by the French publisher Edition Bressard.
In 2020 he gave a workshop entitled "Pandemia: Maneiras de fotografar dentro de casa" [Pandemic: Ways to take photographs at home], for the QXAS Festival de Fotografia do Sertão Central [Sertão Central Photography Festival]. His series "Máscara” [Mask] was selected for the 6th Pequeno Encontro de Fotografia de Olinda/PE [ the Olinda, Pernambuco Photography Meeting]. "Máscara” was also selected for " mago" [Core], the third session in the series of videos from the project POR DENTRO DE UM TEMPO SUSPENSO [WITHIN SUSPENDED TIME], an initiative by Foto em Pauto, Foto Rio, the Solar Foto festival, and DOC Galeria. "Máscara" was also part of the Auckland Festival of Photography in New Zealand with a video showing a selection of over 200 images by 200 international photographers, curated by FORMAT.
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