YORÙBÁIANO:

WAYS OF DEALING WITH INHERITANCE AND PROJECTING THE FUTURE

Abstract

Dealing with natural elements such as sugar, jerked beef and palm oil, Ayrson Heráclito, a Bahian artist whose career begins in the 1990s, reviewed the traumas of Brazil's colonialist past. However, these same elements, today, acquire wide uses in a national and international penetration that involves cultural practices, typical foods, and religious rituals. The artist's solo exhibition Yorùbáiano addresses colonial traumas by proposing awareness and designing healing rites. Heráclitus, on the other hand, creates contemporary dialogues with traditions that cross art itself and the history of art. Performances, installations, sculptures, objects, videos and photographs expand the many meanings of art, offering us a kind of museum enchantment. We know that museums were born as chests of curiosities and, part of those collections, were intended to present pieces appropriate to African cultures. As a result, a nefarious past created gaps between populations of African descent who saw their traditions appropriated by a white and racist Europe. Yorùbáiano faces many of these questions by revisiting subjects, such as the cosmovision of Yoruban traditions, assuming that, in Brazil, we review Nigerian heritages inventing rites, dances, jewelry, which sometimes deal with the idea of ​​pride and self-love, sometimes connect ancestry with practices dressings.