Clothing and adornments can tell us lots about the past but sometimes mystery remains.
The Brazilian state of Bahia has a strong link to Africa through its history. Enslaved people from the continent where brought over to the Americas during the transatlantic slave trade, and many “Baiana”, women who trace their roots back to Africa, still wear traditional dress, particularly in the practice of the Afro-Brazilian religion of Candomblé.
In the 19th Century the Brazilian photographer, Marc Ferrez, who worked in both commercial and art fields, owned movie houses, imported photographic equipment and was a member of the Société française de photographie. His images of Brazil documented nature and rural and urban landscapes, capturing them for posterity. A collection of these photographs is now held at the Getty Research Institute.
One of those photographs sparked the interest of academic researcher, Hanayrá Negreiros, who became intrigued by “Black woman from Bahia”, a beautiful picture of a seated woman dressed in fine clothes, and adorned with magnificent jewellery. Her research into this picture led down a path that crosses the line between reality and dreaming as she explored not only the subject’s identity and reason for being in the photograph, but also the possibility that this kind of material might change popular beliefs about Black women in colonial Brazil.
See more:
Marc Ferrez on Google Arts and Culture