Valongo Wharf


Sara Zewde & Studio Zewde

  • Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
  • Unbuilt
  • Memorial

 

In 2011, an old slave port was discovered in Brazil, one of the most used ports in the Americas until Brazil outlawed the practice. Sara Zewde proposes a cultural installation for Valongo wharf that acknowledges the sorrows of Brazil’s role in the slave trade while celebrating Afro-Brazilian culture. Her proposed paths through the intervention mimic the paths taken by slave ships across the Atlantic, but interspersed with plants and cultural elements that would have been more familiar to African slaves.  This is her way of remembering the past and using it to drive positive change for the future.