From slavery to freedom: the image of Anastácia between contemporary art, politics and religion

Abstract

This article recovers the historical plot and controversies surrounding the image of Anastácia to follow its transition between and its transformation into different historical records: memory of slavery, magical-religious ones, political records and of racial consciousness, to then focusing on an exemplary case of contemporary Brazilian art - the work of black LGBTQIA+ artist Yhuri Cruz, from Rio de Janeiro. A topic of interest to other researchers over the last decades, the reproductions and appropriations of Anastácia’s image are analyzed here to explore the intersections between art and politics, through an analytical movement that culminates in artistic actions of counter-memory and “critical fabulation”, which produce the conversion of “Slave Anastácia” into “Free Anastácia”.

Keywords:
Afro-Brazilian; popular religion; Yhuri Cruz; Anastácia Livre