BLACK ART EXHIBITION: CATALYZING BLACK ARTISTIC EXPERIENCES IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Abstract

This text aims to reflect on the catalyzing artistic experiences of blackness based on a provocation about the role of a white person in the anti-racist construction within the university context. With the aim of promoting the protagonism of university black artists and city residents, the B.A. in Dance students (UFV-MG) propose the creation of the Mostra de Preta (Black Art Exhibition). By valuing the cultural identity of the black body, the exhibition goes against the aesthetic and artistic standards imposed by the media, which make these bodies invisible and inhibit them. It is known that Brazilian universities still have elitist and exclusionary characteristics that contribute to the historical invisibility of the scientific and artistic productions of the Afro-American-Indigenous population. Since the introduction of affirmative actions, there have been some advances, not enough, but that provoke paradigm shifts that demand different perspectives on science and art. The university is changing, gradually and with conflicts, creating an imbalance in the hegemonic whiteness present in this space, intensifying the debate on diversity and racism. White faculty are called to an engagement that is built at a not harmonious crossroads together with social movements, what makes us question our role in the racist construction that is established in society, and to seek strategies to confront racism and prejudices that have been historically instituted in the academic environment that has been forged by hegemonic policies, i.e. white and Eurocentric.