Exhibition on Black Women’s Literature Opens at CCBB Rio

By Charlotte Markham, Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The exhibition by Carioca Ana Hupe, “Leituras para mover o centro”, (“Readings to move the center”), opens today, May 17th, at the Central Cultural Banco do Brasil (CCBB) museum in Rio de Janeiro and focuses on the often marginalized, black women’s literature in order to propose experimental reading methods.

The series features a photo of ten women and one man from Berlin and Rio de Janeiro each appearing with their favorite publications. Every photograph is accompanied by a text, in which the artist mixes the true story of the interviewee with facts, snippets and historical characters.

Ana Hupe explained in a press release that when “Thinking of writing and books as transmitters of knowledge and places for preparation and reflection, that helped in achieving decolonization, I interviewed black women living in Germany and African immigrants living in Brazil about their favorite books.”

She posed the question to each of her subjects, “How does [the literature] help to understand the places that these women talk about?”, the artist then built her project around their answers.

Part of the exhibition features the installation of aluminum reading devices for one – three people, where the book can be read by the visitor standing, lying down or sitting, without needing to handle it.

Furthermore, there are two transportable libraries, each containing fifty volumes available for the public to use. In them, there are titles that serve as reference for the project: African- Brazilian literature, postcolonial literary criticism, African languages dictionaries, texts on black religiousness, among others.

The artist has also produced a video “Colonizados” (Colonized), which brings together testimonies of people pictured with elements drawn from nature, such as shells, beetles, butterflies, feathers, corals etc., all collected in South Africa. Forty of these items will be on display at the facility, as well as some water-based plants.

What: Ana Hupe’s exhibition, Leitura para mover o centro (Readings to move the center)
When: Tuesday, May 17th through Monday, June 20th, from 9AM through 9PM
Where: Central Cultural Banco do Brasil, Centro, Rua Primeiro de Março, 66, Rio de Janeiro
Entrance: Free