The piece ”Folded Continents” (South America), by Marina Camargo (2019) | Image: Republished with permission This text, written by Anna Ortega, was originally published on the website Nonada Journalism on July 1, 2023. It is republished here under a partnership agreement between Nonada and Global Voices, with edits. All images here are used with permission or licence for republication. The map of Brazil is a drawing made by colonizers’ hands. The borders that divide it from the rest of South America and those that divide its federal states are lines that reflect the historical processes of the invasion of these lands. Brazilian artists have been creating new works which provoke discussion about Brazil’s formation. Such is the work of Marina Camargo, from the northeastern Alagoas state, who made a map from latex, and of Jefferson Medeiros, from Rio de Janeiro, who made a carving of Brazil’s territory with wood. Maurício Igor, from the northern state of Pará, placed his body in the map, in a painting made on a piece of plywood measuring 1.5 metres. The first atlases, dating from the late 16th century, claimed to show the world “as it really is”, but contributed to the appropriation of Indigenous territories and the domination of these peoples. In the following centuries, maps continued to be used by capitalists to establish their order, consolidate economic blocs, and justify the exploitation of natural resources. Over time, the notion of cartography as a definitive record of reality began to be challenged, and theorists and artists began to propose a counter-cartography, or critical cartography, problematizing this historical use of maps for the legitimization of colonialism and nationalism. An example is the piece “Inverted America,” by the Spanish-Uruguayan artist Joaquín Torres Garcia, which has become one of the greatest symbols of Latin American identity. In his manifesto “The School of the South,” he explains: “We turned the map upside down to get an exact idea of our position, without worrying what the rest of the world thinks.” As part of cosmopolitical Indigenous art, as the artist Denilson Baniwa defines it, he presented “There Is No Cartography in the Shamans’ World” (2020). The work is based on a map of Amazonian rivers dating from the 17th century, on which he drew designs, imposing counter-colonial symbols on the colonizers’ tool. “There Is No Cartography in the Shamans’ World” by Denilson Baniwa (2020) | Image: Reproduction / Republished with permission The researcher Ana Paula do Val discussed the concepts of affective cartography and the cartography of memories as parts of a dialogue. She believes that affective maps dialogue with these other ways of thinking as a process of sociocultural mediation. This involves creative processes, which develop artistic and cultural perceptions and promote a subjective understanding of maps, evoking contexts, narratives, and identities that are manifested on them. In her work, the artist and activist Lyz Parayzo references the series of sculptures “Bugs” by Lygia Clark. Parayzo makes metal sculptures with the sharp edges exposed, leaving the apparent danger of contact ever-present. Although static, the impression given is that at some point the gears’ teeth will rotate, and the map of Brazil will be disassembled. These artists make us question: What constitutes a territory? What is this country made of? What does a map show? “Diaspora” by André Vargas (2022) | Image: Reproduction / Republished with permission André Vargas, an artist who works with the power of the word (Ofó, in Yoruba), studies popular and imaginative sayings. From cultural, linguistic, religious, historical, and aesthetic elements, André articulates ancestry and evokes origins, primarily African. In artistic productions that often evoke rituals, he takes an interest in the encounter between personal and collective memory. In his work “Diaspora,” sculpted from flip flops — which are very popular in Brazil — the African and American continents are joined. The material chosen is also central, as it imports and informs of a desire to speak about a present history, which walks alongside us. Untitled, by Maurício Igor (2022) | Image: Reproduction / Republished with permission Maurício Igor explores issues of identities in themes such as gender, sexuality, ethnic “mixing,” decoloniality and everyday life in the Amazon region. He has also focused on the theme of displacement, which is reflected in his personal history, and he explores it with photographs, videos, performances, texts, and installations.