Paulo Nazareth

Based in a favela near Belo Horizonte, Paulo Nazareth engages with the complicated present and past of his native Brazil. “My work is about that mix and meeting of many people in Brazil. Religion is mixed, race is mixed, and even philosophy is mixed,” Nazareth has said. “I think it's about the desire of that mixed cultural memory. We Brazilians don’t know where we’re from.” Nazareth, who is of African and indigenous descent, often includes autobiographical elements in his work, drawing on his personal experiences in various parts of Africa and South America. In notebooks, photographs, videos, and objects, Nazareth recounts and illustrates his stories, revealing and dispelling misperceptions and creating counter narratives to commonly held fallacies about these regions.